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Q' 


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I      I   Covers  damaged  / 


Couverture  endommag^ 


□   Covers  restored  and/or  laminated  / 
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Coloured  plates  and/or  illustrations  / 
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D 

D 

n 


D 


D 


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ou  qui  peuvent  exiger  une  modification  dans  la  m6tho- 
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possible. 


D 


This  itmn  i«  f  ilnMd  at  Mm  raductlon  ratio  chackad  balow  / 


lOx 

14x 

18x 

22x 

26x 

30x 

J 

12x 

16x 

20x 

24x 

28x 

32x 

Th«  COPY  filmed  h«r«  has  bMn  raproductd  thanks 
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National  Library  of  Canada 


L'axamplaira  filmi  fut  raproduit  grica  i  la 
ginirosit*  da: 

Bibliotheque  nationale  du  Canada 


Tha  imagas  appearing  hara  ara  tha  bast  quality 
possible  considering  the  condition  and  legibility 
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filming  contract  specificationa. 


Original  copies  in  printed  paper  covers  are  filmed 
beginning  with  the  front  cover  and  ending  on 
the  last  page  with  a  printed  or  illuatrated  imprea- 
sion.  or  the  back  cover  when  appropriate.  All 
other  original  copies  are  filmed  beginning  on  the 
first  page  with  a  printed  or  illustrated  imprea- 
sion,  and  ending  on  the  last  page  with  e  printed 
or  illuatrated  impression. 


The  laat  recorded  frame  on  each  microfiche 
shall  contain  tha  symbol  — ••  (meaning  "CON- 
TINUED"), or  the  symbol  V  (meaning  "END"), 
whichever  appiiaa. 

Maps,  plates,  charts,  etc.,  may  be  filmed  at 
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beginning  in  the  upper  left  hand  corner,  left  to 
right  and  top  to  bottom,  as  many  frames  as 
required.  The  following  diagrams  illustrate  the 
method: 


Lea  images  suivantas  ont  ixi  raproduites  avac  la 
plus  grand  soin.  compta  tanu  de  la  condition  at 
de  la  nattet*  da  t'exemplaira  filmA,  at  mn 
conformity  avac  lea  conditiona  du  contrat  da 
filmaga. 

Lea  axemplairaa  originaux  dont  la  couvarture  an 
papier  eat  imprimie  sont  film^s  en  commen^ant 
par  la  premier  plat  at  an  tarminant  soit  par  la 
darniire  page  qui  comporta  une  amprainta 
d'imprassion  ou  d'illustration.  soit  par  la  second 
plat,  salon  le  cas.  Tous  las  autres  axamplairas 
originaux  sont  filmte  90  commen^ant  par  la 
premiire  pege  qui  comporte  une  emprainta 
d'imprassion  ou  d'illustration  at  an  tarminant  par 
la  darniAre  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 

Un  dea  symbolas  suivants  apparaitra  sur  la 
darniire  image  da  cheque  microfiche,  salon  la 
cas:  la  symbols  "^  signifie  "A  SUIVRE ',  le 
symbols  V  signifie  "FIN". 

Les  cartaa.  planches,  tableaux,  etc..  peuvent  itra 
filmte  k  das  taux  de  reduction  diffirents. 
Lorsque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  itra 
roproduit  en  un  seul  clich*.  il  est  film*  A  partir 
da  Tangle  supArieur  gauche,  de  gauche  i  droite. 
et  de  haut  en  bas,  en  prenant  le  nombre 
d'images  nicessaira.  Las  diagrammes  suivants 
illuatrent  la  m«thoda. 


1  2  3 


1  2  3 

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Miaoconr  «esoiutk>n  test  chaut 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


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^:S  (716)   288-5989  -Fax 


1-HE  HARVEST  OF  THE  SEA 


SOME    REAPERS    OF    THE    HARVEST 


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THE    HARFEST 
OF     THE     SEA 


A  TALE  OF  BOTH  SIDES 
OF    THE    ATLANTIC 


By 

Wilfred  r.   Grenfell, 

Member  of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  etc..  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


New  rork         Chicago         Toronto 

Fleming  H.   Revell  Company 

London    and    Edinburgh 


y 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  63  Washington  Street 
Toronto:  27  Richmond  Street,  W 
London:  31  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:     100    Princes    Street 


CONTENTS 


Introduction    . 

•         •         •         • 

I.  I  Am  Apprenticed  to  the  Fisheries      . 

II.  A  Change  of  Berth  .... 

III.  The  Grog-Ship  and  its  Victims 

IV.  A  Hero  of  the  Fishing  Fleet     . 

V.  The  Sea  Claims  "  Darkie  Jim  "  . 

VI.  The  Coming  of  the  Gospel 

VII.  Dark  Days  for  the  Missioner    . 

VIII.  The  Mission-Ship  Takes  Us  by  Surprise 

IX.  Little  Billy's  First  Sermon 

X.  What  the  Grog-Ship  did  for  Skipper 

Tom 

XI.  The  Fight  Against  the  Copers  . 

XII.  Three  Hundred  Miles  to  a  Hospital 

XIII.  A  Great  Surgeon  Comes    . 

XIV.  Looking  Out  for  the  Men  Ashore     . 

XV.  Off  the  Coast  of  Labrador 

XVI.  The  Labradorman's  Story  . 

XVII.  The  Labrador  Eskimo  and  the  Mora- 

vian Missionaries    .... 

XVIII.  How  We  did  Without  a  Doctor 

XIX.  "  Preach  the  Word — Heal  the  Sick  " 

XX.  What   the    Hospital   Ship    Meant  to 

Labrador       

XXI.  Where  Poverty  Means  Starvation     . 

XXII.  Helping  Others  to  Help  Themselves 


9 
II 

21 

*9 
33 
44 
52 
6o 
66 
73 

79 
86 

9* 

99 
104 

112 

117 

126 
132 

'44 
'S» 
'57 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Some  Reapers  of  the  Harvest 
"  Our  Fleet  was  called  the  Red- White  " 
Drink  is  not  the  Fisherman's  only  Enemy 
"  Within  an  Ace  of  being  Cut  Down  " 
"  A  Lot  of  Fish  on  Deck  " 
"  The  Ensign  Joined  the  Fleet " 
"  When  the  Fleet  Boarded  Fish  " 
"  Skippers  that  Threw  in  their  Lot "   . 
"There  was  Better  Fun   than  on  the  Grog-ship 
Itself"  ...... 

"  The  Little  Boat  with  the  Helpless  Man  in  it ' 

"  Almost  Every  Sort  of  Sailing  Craft " 

"  The  Neighbours  "  .... 

"  Capelin  Run  High  and  Dry  on  the  Shore  " 
"  They  are  Really  the  Great  Cod  "     . 
**  Many  of  the  Patients  were  not  fit  to  be  left 
"  A  Splendid  little  Hospital  Amidships  " 


Facing  page 
Title 


>7 
24 
46 

55 

67 

72 
79 

89 

95 
112 

118 

122 
124 
149 
160 


INTRODUCTION 

EVERY  one  takes  an  interest  in  the  sea 
rovers  of  old.  No  boy  but  is  thrilled  by  the 
stories  of  Drake  and  Hawkins,  of  Frank- 
lin, Frobisher  and  John  Paul  Jones.  Stories  of 
heroic  courage  and  indomitable  energy  still  in- 
spire us  with  a  longing  to  lead  nobler  lives  our- 
selves, and  though  in  all  ages  the  hardest  battles 
have  had  to  be  fought  in  other  spheres  than 
the  physical,  yet  in  this  twentieth  century,  when 
from  childhood  to  the  grave  so  many  breathe  an 
atmosphere  of  enervation,  thank  God  we  still 
love  and  admire  anything  that  suggests  to  us 
the  same  great  qualities  that  nerved  those  heroes 
of  old ! 

They  are  other  motives  that  in  these  days 
actuate  the  Toilers  of  the  Deep  to  fight  again  in 
small  vessels  the  same  fight  with  the  mighty 
elements,  far  off  upon  the  seas,  while  we  in  the 
gales  of  winter  enjoy  the  warmth  and  shelter  of 
our  homes  on  the  land.  Yet  can  we  think  that 
the  motive,  which  is  to  provide  for  wives  ptI 
children  the  blessings  of  the  land,  is  less  n' 
because  it  involves  the  humble  calling  of  the 


MMi 


mmm 


10 


INTR  ODUCriON 


fisherman,  than  if  it  meant  the  shedding  of  blood, 
perhaps  for  reasons  no  loftier  than  greed  for  gold 
or  desire  for  the  praise  of  men  ? 

For  over  twenty  years  I  have  lived  among  the 
deep-sea  fishermen  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
and  I  can  safely  challenge  any  man  to  say  that 
they  are   unworthy   representatives   of   a-   an- 
cestry we  love  to  boast  of.     The  same  courage, 
even  unto  death,  I  have  seen  exhibited  again 
and  again,  and   that  where   no   other  spur  to 
action  existed  than  the  imperious  conscience  of 
a  brave  sailor.     No  reward  was  looked  for,  no 
mead  of  praise  obtained.     Yet  I  have  seen  men 
go  to  save  a  human  life,  where  heroes  might 
have  feared  to  follow;  for  more  than  once  it 
meant  passing,  alone  and  unobserved,  into  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death. 

My  story  aims  to  give  some  idea  of  the  lives 
we  live,  and  how  these  marvellous  things  were 
done  for  us.  It  is  an  attempt  to  describe  a  social 
revolution,  and  the  going  forth  to  us,  in  our 
homes  at  sea,  of  the  old,  old  story,  with  the  same 
power  as  in  ages  past.  I  have  thought  it  wise 
to  have  two  of  my  fishermen  friends  tell  the 
story  of  this  transformation. 

Wilfred  Grenfell. 


THE  HARVEST 
of    THE     SEA 


I  am  APPRENTICED  to  The  FISHERIES 

EXACTLY  where  I  first  saw  the  Hght  I  do 
not  know.  I  suppose  it  must  have  been 
in  a  more  or  less  comfortable  home.  My 
father,  I  believe,  was  a  master  carpenter,  and  as 
such  should  have  earned  wages  enough  to  keep 
the  family  in  moderate  comfort  at  least.  But 
drink  and  bad  company  proved  his  and  our  ruin, 
as  it  has  many  another's,  and  long  before  I  knew 
my  right  hand  from  my  left,  he  had  disappeared 
and  left  us  to  live  or  die  as  Fate  determined. 

Faint  recollections  of  a  dingy  garret  of  ^"hich 
we  rented  one  corner  rise  in  my  mem  y  at 
times ;  and  then  I  recall  the  neighbours'  taking 
away  our  mother,  and  things  being  even  woree 
than  before,  because  she  never  came  back.  Poor 
mother !  all  she  left  behind  her  was  Tom  and 
Jessie  and  mc.     Tom  was  six  years  older  than  I, 

II 


12  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

and  on  him  devolved  the  task  of  feeding  us 
But  It  was  the  kindness  of  neighbours  that  rciUy 
kept  us  from  starvation  in  the  corner  of  that  old 
garret  where  we  still  hved.    I  remember  the  poor 
heap  of  straw  that  served  us  as  a  bed  as  well  as 
If  .t  were  yesterday,  and  the  horrible  cold  draught 
that  swept  under  the  rickety  door  and  made 
straight  for  our  corner,  and  often  kept  us  so  cold 
that,  huddled  up  as  we  were  into  a  living  ball  we 
were  stdl  unable  to  gain  the  blissful  forgetfulness 
of  sleep.    I  soon  learnt  to  earn  a  :  nv  odd  cop- 
pers by  turning  summersaults  beside  the  tram- 
cars  that  plied  along  the  crowded  street.    Many 
a  time  I  nearly  choked  myself  by  having  to 
carry  my  earnings  in  my  mouth,  my  ragged  var- 
ments   being  -nnocent  of  sound  pockets.  ^ So 
hungry  have  I  been,  when  luck  was  bad,  that  I 
would  follow  the  carts  as  they  went  to  the  great 
sugar  refinery  in  Whitechapel.  and  lick  the  drip- 
pings  from  the  empty  puncheons. 

One  night  I  was  awakened  by  a  bright  light  in 
my  face,  and  a  great  man  in  blue  clothes  turning 
me  roughly  over. 

"  7^^*'"  y^"*-  name,  youngster  ?  "  he  asked 
BiiJy /"""''  ^"°<' I  answered;  "Jess  calls  me 


Jam  APPRENTICED  u  The  FISHERIES   13 

He  talked  a  long  time  with  some  of  our  fellow 
lodgers,  and  then  told  me  to  come  along,  and  he 
would  send  for  Jess  later  on.     I  never  saw  Jess 
again.    They  told  me  they  had  put  her  in  an 
orphanage,  and  I  believe  she  was  sent  to  Canada 
later  on.     Next  day  they  took  me  to  a  great 
room,  crowded  with  people.    Tom  was  there, 
between    two    policemen.    They  said    he  had 
stolen  some  fruit  from  one  of  those  greengrocers' 
stalls  that  stand  out  on  the  sidewalk.    If  he  had, 
I  don't  think  it  was  so  bad  as  the  judge  made 
out,  for  I  know  he  had  the  pain  of  hunger  in  his 
stomach  often  enough.    They  said,  however,  it 
was  time  to  make  an  "  example,"  so  Tom  was 
sent  to  a  refcrmator>'  ship.     Two  or  three  days 
later  I  was  bundled  into  the  train  with  three 
other  boys  about  my  own  age,  and  taken  to 
Grimsby,  that  great  centre  of  the  fishing  trade,  to 
be  apprenticed  to  the  fisheries.     From  the  sta- 
tion I  was  taken  to  my  future  master's  house, 
and  was  there  bound  apprentice  to  him.     He  was 
to  feed  and  clothe  me,  and  to  treat  me  well.     He 
was  also  to  allow  me  a  little  pocket  money,— and 
little  enough  it  provtd  to  be.     In  return,  I  was  to 
serve  him  for  seven  years  in  any  way  he  liked. 
What  a  change  from  our  old  garret !    Here 


»4  The  HARDEST  of  Th,  SEA 

we  were  well  fed  and  warmly  clothed,  for  our 
master's  wife  was  a  mother  to  us  boys.    There 
were  twelve  of  us.  all  told,  learning  to  be  deep 
sea  fishermen  ;  but  we  were  never  all  in  from  sea 
at  one  time.    I  think  my  apprenticeship  would 
have  been  happy  enough,  while  I  was  ashore, 
but  one  of  the  bigger  boys  was  a  cowardly  bully,' 
and  while  I  was  young  and  weak,  I  was  one  of 
his  favourite  victims.     Many  were  the  *.orments 
he  inflicted  on  me.    One  of  them  rises  to  my 
memory  still,  owing  to  a  strange  coincidence 
that  happened  many  years  after.     One  day  with 
two  or  three  of  his  gang  he  had  smuggled  home 
some  cheap  and  fiery  gin  from  a  saloon  near 
the  dock  gates.    They  meant  to  make  me  drunk 
on  it,  and  then  fo  use  me  as  they  liked.    As  I 
refused  to  drink  it,  however,  they  held  me  on 
the  ground,  while  thev  poured  it  down  my  throat 
They  fairly  soaked  me  in  the  stuff,  making  me 
hate  it  so  that  it  was  years  before  I  touched  it 
again.     What  stamped  it  so  on  my  memory  was 
that  some  years  later,  when  I  was  skipper  of  my 
own  ship,  and  God  had  given  me  a  comfortable 
home  of  my  own,  a  poor  miserable  wretch  came 
up  to  me  one  day  in  the  street,  and  asked  me  to 
give  him  enough  to  get  a  drink,  "  for  old  times' 


lam  APPRENTICED  to  The  FISHERIES   15 

sake."  It  proved  to  be  my  old  fellow  prentice,  a 
broken  man  already,  with  the  stamp  of  the  drunk- 
ard all  over  him.  Thank  God  I  w^is  able  to  do 
better  tl  that  for  him,  though  nothing  could 
wipe  from  his  slate  the  record  of  those  evil  years. 
But  I  am  anticipating. 

Before  long  I  was  shipped  as  cabin  boy  on  the 
fishing  smack  Heroine.  She  was  a  sixty-ton 
ketch,  carrying,  like  all  the  others,  five  hands, 
and  was  bound  for  that  great  submerged  sand- 
bank, called  the  "  Dogger."  Here  we  were  to 
fish,  without  seeing  the  land,  for  a  minimum 
period  of  two  months.  Indeed  our  owner  only 
expected  us  to  return  when  the  ship  had  to  be 
refitted  and  restocked.  What  a  wild,  rough, 
cruel  life  it  was  to  us  boys  at  sea !  I  shudder 
even  now  as  I  look  back  on  the  first  two  years 
of  it.  For  if  cruelty  to  children  is  bad  ashore,  it 
is  ten  times  worse  at  sea.  A  boy  could  with  im- 
punity be  done  even  to  death,  and  more  than  one 
was,  being  then  dropped  over  the  side,  and  re- 
ported simply  as  "  washed  overboard."  I  re- 
member one  lad  well.  He  certainly  was  ".  dirty 
fellow,  though  probably  no  one  had  ever  taught 
him  better.  Like  all  of  us  lads,  he  was  supposed 
to  keep  the  cabin  clean,  as  well  as  to  cook  the 


I6  Tht  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

food.    He  was  a  poor,  puny,  pale-faced  chap  when 
he  arrived,  and  he  never  got  over  his  first  sea- 
sickness.    So  it  was  pretty  hard  on  the  men,  who 
were  working  hard  day  and  night  and  wanted 
all  the  food  they  could  get.    It  so  happened  too 
our  skipper  xvas  a  hard  drinker,  and  when  in  his 
cups  a  dangerous  man  to  cross.    At  times  he 
ueat  the  boy  badly,  though  never  without  some 
provocation,  however  slight.    That  only  seemed 
to  make  him  wors. ,  however,  and  more  untidy 
and  dirty  and  careless.     At  last  one  day  the 
skipper    put   him  below  the  ballast  deck.     It 
was  pitch  dark  down  there,  and  the  bilge  water 
swashing  about,  wetted  and  froze  the  poor  little 
chap.     He  was  only  down  an  hour  or  so  at  a 
time,  but  the  skipper  saw  how  he  feared  it,  and 
once  he  left  him  there  all  day  and  night.    The 
boy  was  scarcely  alive  when  they  hauied  him  out, 
and  the  men  were  badly  frightened  and  did  all 
they  could  for  him.  but  he  died  two  days  later 
His  body  was   n  such  a  state  they  dared  not  take 
It  home,  so  they  tied  some  rocks  to  his  feet  and 
threw  him  into  the  sea.     He  was  put  down  on 
the  log  as  "  fallen  overboard." 

Though  we  were  out  of  sight  of  land,  we  did 
not  live  exa-.tly  alone,  for  there  were  ninety  to  a 


I 


1 


lam  APPRENTICED  to  Tht  FISHERIES   17 

hundred  other  fishing  smacks  similar  to  our  own, 
altogether  forming  a  fleet.  Our  fleet  was  called 
the  "Red-White,"  from  its  flag;  others  were 
called  the  "  Red  Cross,"  the  "  Short  Blues,"  and 
so  on.  The  men  themselves  called  our  fleet  the 
"  Rashers,"  because  our  flag  was  like  a  piece  of 
bacon.  Each  fleet  had  an  admiral  and  a  vice- 
admiral. 

As  I  have  been  one  myself,  on  and  off",  these 
twenty  years,  I  will  only  say  that  the  admiral  is 
supposed  to  be  a  good  man  to  get  the  fleet  out 
of  difficulties,  when  the  weather  is  bad  or  other 
danger  threatens.  He  is  obliged  to  know  the 
fishing  grounds  well,  and  to  manoeuvre  the  vessels 
under  his  charge  so  that  they  will  always  catch 
plenty  of  fish.  If  the  fleet  does  badly,  there  is 
no  end  of  grumbling,  and  if  it  continues,  the  ad- 
miral will  soon  be  turned  out  of  his  billet.  Dur- 
ing the  day  the  admiral  signals  to  his  fleet  by 
flags ;  he  carries  a  broad  flag  to  distinguish  his 
vessel.     At  night  he  uses  a  code  of  rockets. 

Every  morning  one  vessel,  called  the  "  carrier," 
takes  to  market  all  the  fish  the  fleet  has  caught. 
Nowadays  all  the  carriers  are  steamers,  and 
about  six  of  them  are  attached  to  each  fleet. 
"  Boarding  the  fish,"  as  we  call  it,  is  the  most 


i 


i8 


The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 


dangerous  part  of  the  work.  The  fish  are  packed 
in  large  boxes,  and  these  are  carried  to  the 
steamer  in  the  small  boats.  On  very  rough 
mornings,  some  of  the  most  thoughtful  skippers 
would  not  make  the  crew  get  the  small  boat  out, 
as  lives  were  often  lost  in  the  rush  and  tumble, 
when  heavy-laden  boats  were  knocking  into  one 
another,  as  they  lay  wallowing  in  the  trough  of 
the  sea.  Such  d^ys  meant  great  chances  for  the 
more  reckless  men,  for  the  markets  would  be 
less  well  stocked,  and  therefore  the  ice  of  fish 
much  better.  But  we  lads  had  to  go  if  we  were 
told,  and  so  we  used  to  make  the  best  of  it,  and 
not  let  any  one  see  we  were  afraid.  Indeed,  to 
do  us  justice,  we  soon  learnt  not  to  fear  any- 
thing, and  would  go  as  readily  when  it  almost 
meant  death  to  go,  as  if  it  were  the  finest 
weather.  The  truth  was,  we  scarcely  valued  our 
own  lives  at  all,  and  much  less  any  one  else's. 

I  shall  never  forget  my  first  upset.  It  was  one 
New  Year's  day  and  Sunday  morning,  blowing 
hard,  and  a  nasty  northeasterly  lump  heaving  in. 
We  had  just  got  our  fish  out  and  were  clearing 
away  from  the  steamer's  side,  when  a  cross  sea 
rose  under  our  counter.    The  boat  stood  on  her 


lam  APPRENTICED  to  The  FISHERIES   19 

he^  for  a  minute,  and  then  fell  over,  catching 
me  like  a  mouse  in  a  trap.    I  suddenly  found 
that  I  was  under  the  boat  in  complete  darkness, 
with  my  arm  over  one  of  the  seats.    I  knew  I 
must  try  and  get  out,  or  perish  in  a  few  minutes ; 
so,  although  I  couldn't  swim  a  yard,  I  caught 
hold   of   the  gunwale,  dragged    myself    under 
water,  and  somehow  managed  to  climb  up  onto 
the  keel.    Only  Archie,  our  third  hand,  was 
there.    Sam  had  never  got  a  hold,  and  was  dead 
by  then  probably.     The  driving  spray  kept  us 
from  seeing  to  windward,  the  only  way  help 
could  come ;  and  already  we  were  nearly  dead 
with  cold.    We  were  just  giving  up  hope,  when 
I  caught  sight  of  a  smack  "  heaving  to  "  in  the 
wind,  right  ahead  of  us,  and  I  knew  some  one 
was  going  to  try  for  us.    Archie  was  now  lying 
with  his  heaci  down,  and  ti.ough  I  kept  singing 
out  to  him, "  For  God's  sake,  keep  up  a  little 
longer ! "  he  let  go,  and  I  had  to  grip  him  as  he 
washed  past  me. 

That  knocked  me  oflT,  too,  and  I  don't  know 
what  happened  afterwardr,  till  I  woke  up  in  the 
steamer's  cabin,  where  some  of  the  men  had 
rolled  the  water  out  of  me  and  life  back  into  me. 


t  ■ 


20  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

Poor  Archie  was  dead,  though  they  had  picked 
him  up,  too.  They  told  me  I  had  a  grip  of  his 
jumper  like  a  steel  vice.  Four  men  lost  their 
lives  alongside  that  morning.  But  our  fish 
fetched  a  splendid  price. 

That  was  the  first  time  I  had  to  go  home  with 
the  flag  half-mast. 


u 

e/?  CHANGE  of  BERTH 

I  HAD  sailed  in  the  Heroine  for  two  years, 
when  she  ended  her  days  by  catching  fire 
one  night  when  all  hands  were  on  deck 
hauling  the  gear.    When  the  gear  was  to  be 
hauled,  even  the  cook  boy  had  to  lend  a  hand ; 
and  I,  as  the  youngest  and  greenest  of  the  crew, 
of  course  held  that  post.     My  job  was  to  go 
down  in  the  dark  hold  and  coil  the  great  warp 
in  its  pound  as  it  came  winding  in.    As  I  had  to 
catch  it  above  my  head,  the  streaming  water 
used  to  run  all  over  me,  and  I  had  to  spend 
my  hours  of  sleep  more  often  wet  than  dry ;  for 
we  always  hauled  at  sundown  and  again  at  mid- 
night.    We  used  a  hand  capstan,  in  those  days, 
and  this  meant  that  the  crew  had  to  walk  round 
and  round  the  upright,  sometimes  for  three  or 
four  hours.     It  was  no  end  of  a  job  on  a  dirty 
night  when  there  was  a  coating  of  ice  on  the 
rolling  decks ;  for  of  course  it  was  pitch  dark, 
and  we  had  to  step  over  the  rope  as  we  came 
round  to  it.    Even  then  I  have  known  all  the 


mn 


jam 


mmm 


22  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

rope  to  be  shot  out  again  by  a  sea  striking  us, 
just  when  we  thought  we  had  finished.  Some- 
times, too,  the  net  itseii  would  bring  up  fast  in 
some  rock  or  old  wreck  on  the  bottom.  We 
dared  not  cut  it  adrift,  for  it  was  worth  about 
four  hundred  dollars ;  so  we  would  sometimes  be 
heaving  and  tugging,  and  hauling  and  dragging 
at  it  for  hours,  only  after  all,  perhaps,  to  save  a 
few  fathoms  of  torn  rope  and  net.  One  calm 
day  we  actually  hauled  up,  far  enough  to  see  the 
spars  and  yards,  an  old  water-logged  wreck  that 
must  have  been  on  the  bottom  for  years. 

These  long  hours  of  extra  work  used  some- 
times to  make  the  men  so  sleepy,  that  they  would 
go  fast  asleep  as  they  walked  round  the  cap- 
stan. I  remember  one  night  our  mate  didn't 
answer  when  the  skipper  spoke  to  him ;  so  the 
skipper  took  up  the  hurricane  lantern,  and  flashed 
it  in  his  face.  The  mate  took  no  notice,  but  went 
on  walking  round,  and  stepping  over  the  rope 
every  time  he  came  to  it.  He  was  fast  asleep  all 
the  time. 

It  was  just  such  a  night  that  we  lost  the  Hero- 
ine. We  were  dead-beat.  The  men  had  all 
been  on  deck  for  some  hours,  when  smoke  came 
blowing  forrard  from  the  companion  hatch.    The 


A  CHANGE  of  BERTH  23 

skipper  rushed  aft  and  tried  to  get  below,  but 
couldn't  face  the  heat  and  smoke.  He  then  took 
the  axe,  and  tried  to  cut  a  hole  through  the 
decks,  so  as  to  heave  water  down  that  way.  But 
it  was  all  no  good,  and  in  a  little  while  we  had 
to  take  to  the  boat,  losing  every  article  of  cloth- 
ing, and  everything  else  we  possessed.  It  was 
terribly  cold  tossing  about,  wet  as  I  was,  in  that 
boat  in  the  dark.  For  it  was  full  two  hours  be- 
fore we  managed  to  make  a  vessel  with  her  gear 
down,  and  get  aboard.  The  old  Heroine  made  a 
noble  show  as  she  flared  up.  She  burnt  almost 
to  the  water-line  before  she  sank,  going  down 
head  first  with  a  fearful  plunge.  The  worst  of 
the  business,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  was  that 
I  was  placed  in  a  new  ship  under  a  strange  skip- 
per. For  the  "  old  man,"  as  we  called  him  (he 
was  about  thirty-five),  had  been  not  unkind  to 
us.  He  had  "  kiddies  "  of  his  own  on  the  shore, 
and  though  he  went  now  and  again  to  the  grog- 
ship,  he  generally  got  clear  of  her  before  dark. 
I  think  it  must  have  been  his  wife  that  kept  him 
straight.  He  certainly  seemed  to  care  about  her, 
and  we  boys  loved  her,  for  she  always  had  a  kind 
welcome  for  us.  We  used  to  be  allowed  to  go 
down  to  the  house,  and  more  than  one  supper 


vi 


H  The  HARFEST  of  The  SEA 

she  gave  us  behind  the  "  old  man's  "  back,  which 
kept  me,  at  least,  from  many  a  worse  place. 
She  was  religious,  too,  and  went  to  a  chapel  down 
near  the  fish-dock.  But  I  think  I  may  say  that 
I  had  in  those  days  never  heard  the  name  of 
Christ,  unless  it  were  in  an  oath.  Our  master 
had  no  leanings  that  way— perhaps  a  good  thing, 
as  his  life  wouldn't  have  borne  him  out.  There 
was  no  religion  at  sea. 

I  had  grown  into  a  good  strong  lad  by  then, 
and  having  from  infancy  had  to  fight  all  my  own 
battles,  I  was  able  now  to  hold  my  own  pretty 
well  with  any  one.  Well  it  was  for  me  that  it 
was  so.  For  now  I  was  to  sail  on  a  ship  where 
I  was  to  be  with  a  drunken  skipper,  fearless  alike 
of  God  or  man.  The  life  at  sea  had  been,  so 
far,  the  best  that  I  had  known,  for  at  least  I  had 
always  had  enough  to  eat  and  drink.  Though  I 
know  now  what  dangers  I  was  passing  through, 
I  did  not  then  regret  having  been  sent  to  the 
fisheries. 

I  shipped  this  time  as  "  fourth  hand."  The 
vessel's  name  was  the  Ocean's  Pride.  The  cook, 
like  myself,  was  a  town  waif  sent  to  the  fisheries 
as  an  apprentice.  The  skipper  had  once  been 
admiral  of  our  fleet,  but  had  been  turned  out  by 


DRINK    IS    NOT    TIH-     IISIIERMAN'S    ONLY    i:.\EMY 


DHn 


A  CHANGE  of  BERTH  25 

the  owners  for  the  losses  that  some  of  his  drunken 
escapades  had  caused  them.  On  one  occasion 
he  had  sailed  his  fleet  in  under  the  little  island  of 
Heligoland.  The  set  of  men  that  were  always 
aboard  him  at  sea,  went  ashore  to  get  liquor. 
The  island  had  no  end  of  opportunities  for  gettin^ 
what  they  wanted.  Soon,  however,  their  senses 
and  their  money  began  to  leave  them,  and  the 
islanders  wanted  to  git  rid  of  them.  It  was  no 
easy  task,  however.  For  as  soon  as  they  tried  it 
on,  the  men  showed  fight,  and  very  soon  had  the 
whole  island  at  their  mercy.  They  did  what 
they  Hked  then  with  the  saloons,  wallowing  in 
drink,  for  the  next  two  days ;  then  we  all  cleared 
off  to  sea  again.  After  that,  only  the  crew  of  a 
single  fishing  vessel  was  allowed  to  land  at  one 
time.  The  admiral's  last  spree  was  to  take  the 
whole  fleet  right  into  the  territorial  waters  under 
the  coast  of  Holland,  so  that  his  gang  again 
might  go  ashore  and  get  grog.  Not  only  were 
some  of  the  vessels  seized  and  towed  into  port 
for  fishing  in  illegal  waters,  but  some  of  the  skip- 
pers stayed  so  long  ashore  that  their  mates  went 
off*  and  took  their  vessels  home,  leaving  the  skip- 
pers to  get  home  as  best  they  could,  by  passenger 
steamers  or  otherwise. 


|> 


a6  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

I  need  not  say  that  all  on  board  the  smack  were 
afraid  of  the  "  skipper,"  and  his  cruelty  to  the  lit- 
tle cook,  Charlie,  was  such  that  on  our  first  time 
home,  just  as  we  were  getting  to  sea  again  we 
found  he  had  bolted  und  was  nowhere  to  be 
found.     His   work    fell  on   my  shoulders,  and 
though  I  did  my  best  to  give  no  cause  for  anger- 
ing the  skipper,  many  a  blow  and  many  a  bucket 
of  cold  water  were  my  portion  before  I  turned 
in  at  night.     Several  times  he  made  me  stay  on 
deck  all  night,  when  it  was  my  time  to  be  turned 
in,  and  that  made  him  all  the  crankier  the  next 
day,  because  I  was  then  unfit  to  do  my  work. 
When  the  voyage  was  up  and  we  reached  home, 
we  found  that  his  master  had  had  Charlie  sent  to 
prison  for  breaking  tlic  a^M  renticeship  laws,  and 
when  we  next  went  to  sea  the  poor  lad  was  led 
down  and  put  on  board,  so  that  he  had  no  chance 
to  escape.     As  for  me,  I  should  have  escaped 
too,  only  I  knew  it  was  no  good.     I  was  half 
afraid  the  skipper  meant  to  kill  Charlie,  and  I 
had  some  sort  of  hope  that  I  might  be  of  use  to 
him.     It  was   no   good  going  and   telling  our 
master  about  it:  he  would  only  have  told  the 
skipper,  for  he  never  would  listen  to  anything 
against  his  skippers,  so  long  as  they  did  well 


A  CHANGE  of  BERTH  27 

with  fi'-h.  And  our  skipper  was  at  least  a  good 
fisherman  in  that  respect,  for  he  would  carry  a 
whole  sail  when  all  the  rest  of  the  fleet  had  two 
reefs  down,  and  so  he  managed  to  drag  his  net 
faster  and  further  perhaps.  Anyhow,  there  was 
nothing  to  say  in  that  respect,  as  we  made  "  good 
voyages." 

The  lust  for  money  is  as  cruel  as  the  craving 
for  drink.  One  of  the  owners,  I  was  told,  actu- 
ally threatened  to  sack  his  skipper,  because  he 
broke  his  fishing  voyage  to  bring  home  a  crew 
of  unfortunate  Dutchmen,  that  he  had  taken 
off  a  sinking  schooner.  There  was  a  time,  in 
Grimsby,  when  the  prentice  lads  in  the  winter 
months  spent  more  time  in  jail  for  deserting, 
than  they  did  at  sea. 

When  we  left,  the  skipper  came  aboard  drunk, 
with  a  "list  aport,"  a  thing  we  used  to  think 
meant  bad  luck.  Once  aboard,  both  the  skipper 
and  mate  went  below,  and  left  us  three  young- 
sters to  manage  as  best  we  could.  After  three 
days,  during  which  we  had  not  seen  either  of 
them  on  deck,  we  fell  in  with  our  fleet,  and  we 
had  to  go  below  and  tell  them  so.  Their  liquor 
was  gone  now,  and  all  they  thought  of  was,  "  Is 
there  a  grog-ship  with  them  ?  " 


28  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

In  those  days  there  was  always  a  vessel,  or 
perhaps  more  than  one,  with  every  large  fleet 
selling  liquor.  She  did  no  fishing,  but  just 
bought— or  stole— everything  she  could,  in  re- 
turn for  fiery  schnapps  or  adulterated  brandies. 
The  vessels  were  called  "  copers."  We  called 
them  "  Hells,"  and  their  liquor  "  chained  light- 
ning." They  generally  sailed  from  some  port 
across  the  North  Sea,  where  alcoholic  liquors 
and  tobacco  are  cheap. 


Ill 

The  GROG-SHIP  and  ITS  f^ICTIMS 

THE  scenes  that  used  to  take  place  on 
the  grog-ships  are  better  imagined  than 
described.     Those  that  frequented  them 
used  to  act  more  hke  devils  than  men  to  one 
another  and  to  us  boys.    Thus  I  remember  Skip- 
per Wakeman  coming  by  his  death.    A  number 
of  the  men  were  making  an  all-night  spree  of  it, 
and  some  time  before  morning  fell  to  quarrelling 
amongst  themselves.     One  of  them  seized  the 
lamp  swinging  in  the  coper's  cabin  and  hurled 
it  at  Wakeman.     The  lamp  broke,  and  the  par- 
affin soaked  into  his  woollen  jersey,  and  in  an 
instant  he  was  a  mass  of  flames.    In  his  agony 
he  rushed  up  the  cabin  stairs.     For  one  moment 
he  danced  about  on  deck— an  awful  sight  that 
none  that  saw  it  will  ever  forget ;  then,  rushing 
to  the  side,  he  flung  himself  into  the  water.     I 
need  hardly  say  none  of  his  companions  was  in 
a  condition  to  try  and  save  him.     And  so  the 
poor  fellow  went  out  into  Eternity.     In  some 

39 


30  The  HARDEST  of  The  SEA 

such  way  many  a  good  man  lost  his  life  in  my 
early  days. 

Hateful  as  these  ships  were  to  me,  however, 
I  was  eager  enough  to  see  one  now,  for  both 
skipper  and  mate  would  at  least  be  off  board  for 
a  short  while,  and  Charlie  and  I  could  forget  our 
miseries. 

The  fleet  was  fishing  at  this  time  on  the  rising 
ground  near  the  coast  of  Denmark.     They  were 
all  doing  well,  and  there  was  no  lack  of  grog- 
vessels  about,  so  we  soon  saw  the  backs  of  our 
chief  officers.     The  mate  came  aboard  next  day, 
and  did  not  leave  us  again,  for  without  him  we 
could  not  have  handled  the  ship  and  done  the 
fishing.     But  the  skipper  we  hardly  saw  again 
for  a  fortnight,  except  when  he  came  off  to  get 
some  fish  to  sell  for  grog,  or  later  when  he  sold 
our  spare  gear,  some  of  the  sails,  and  a  quantity 
of  the  ship's  provisions.     He  couldn't  possibly 
have  drunk  all  he  paid  for,  but  he  was  in  a  half- 
dazed  condition  all  the  time,  and  I  don't  think  he 
knew  just  what  he  was  doing. 

One  day,  at  sundown,  we  saw  a  smack's  boat 
adrift  on  the  ocean,  apparently  with  no  one  in 
her,  so  we  bore  down  to  pick  her  up.  Picture 
our  surprise  when  we  found  our  own  skipper 


The  GROG-SHIP  and  ITS  VICTIMS    31 

stretched  out  in  the  bottom  in  a  drunken  sleep  ! 
When  he  came  to  himself,  next  day,  he  found  he 
had  been  dumped  in  and  cut  adrift,  as  there  was 
nothing  more  to  be  got  out  of  him. 

The  question  now  was  what  to  do  with  our 
vessel.  We  must  go  home  for  fresh  supplies,  or 
get  them  from  our  comrades  in  other  vessels. 
The  first  the  skipper  did  not  dare  to  do,  for  fear 
of  arrest ;  the  second  he  was  either  too  proud  to 
do,  or  too  maddened  to  think  of,  for  there  is  no 
doubt  he  would  have  got  all  he  wanted.  But  in 
his  disordered  state  of  mind,  all  he  thought  of 
was  to  lose  the  ship,  and  he  swore,  over  and  over 
again,  that  she  should  never  more  see  Great 
Grimsby. 

We  took  no  more  notice  of  this  than  we  did 
of  any  other  of  his  drunken  oaths.  But  the  same 
night,  when  the  admiral  signalled  to  shoot  the 
nets,  the  skipper  put  the  helm  hard  up,  and  we 
left  the  fleet  with  a  fair  wind  for  home.  It  was 
late  the  following  night,  when  the  skipper  him- 
self was  at  the  wheel  and  had  let  all  hands  go 
below,  that  we  were  almost  thrown  out  of  our 
bunks  by  the  smack  suddenly  running  up  on  a 
reef.  Breaking  seas  hit  the  vessel  as  she  lay, 
driving  her  up  farther  and  farther  on  the  rocks, 


MNAi^ 


32  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

and  we  soon  saw  that  she  must  go  to  pieces. 
The  skipper  was  like  a  fiend,  yelling  and  shout- 
ing in  delirious  joy.  But  his  mad  triumph  was 
short-lived,  for  a  curling  sea  coming  in  over  the 
rail  swept  him  overboard,  and  his  laughter  was 
lost  in  the  noise  of  the  sea,  and  the  darkness. 
All  the  sailor  qualities  of  the  mate  now  came 
into  play.  He  made  us  lash  spars  together  to 
form  a  raft,  himself  directing  matters  as  if  he  had 
been  in  the  dock  at  home. 

Right  above  us  towered  the  gleaming  light 
that  marked  the  reef,  which  we  now  knew  to  be 
Borkum  Reef,  off  the  north  coast  of  Holland,  In 
spite  of  the  furious  seas,  the  stout  old  Ocean's 
Pride  held  together  long  enough  to  let  us  finish 
our  work,  and  then  we  were  all  lashed  on.  In 
God's  mercy  our  lives  were  thus  spared,  and  the 
drink  demon  cheated  of  further  victims. 

We  were  sent  home  by  the  British  consul  as 
"  shipwrecked  mariners."  But  the  story  leaked 
out  in  time  to  save  the  owner  from  claiming  the 
insurance,  the  skipper  having  long  been  hall- 
marked as  unfit  to  trust  a  vessel  to.  Thus  poor 
Charlie  was  saved  from  his  tormentor,  and  was 
partly  avenged  on  a  money-blinded  master. 


IV 
A  HERO  of  The  tISHING  FLEET 

I   DO  not  intend  to  trouble  you  with  all  my 
own    story:    wearisome    enough    it  would 
prove  to  you,  I  fear ;  but  i  want  to  put  down 
just  those  incidents  that  will  show  what  the  deep 
sea  men  were  and  are.     Alas,  I  was   none  too 
good  a  specimen !     Having  no  one  to  teach  me 
better,  I  fell   into  evil  ways.     What  saved  me 
more  than  anything  else,  perhaps,  was  a  pride  in 
my  own  manhood  and  strength,  and  a  determi- 
nation to  rise  if  I  could.     Like  most  young  fish- 
ermen, I  soon  began  to  "  walk  out  "  with  a  girl, 
— one  who  now  for  twenty- five  years  has  been 
the  partner  of  my  joys  and  sorrows.     A  mighty 
help  she  proved  to  me  then,  for  she  promised  to 
become  my  wife  as  soon  as  I  had  a  vessel  of  my 
own,  but  not  before,  and  not  then  ei«^her,  unless 
I  kept  clear  of  drink  and  bad  ways.     How  many 
a  young  fellow  have  I  seen  rush  into  marriage 
without  ever  recognizing  its  responsibilities  !     It 
has  been  the  girl's  own  fault,  often  enough,  that 
she  has  not  kept  the  love  of  her  sailor  husband, 

33 


34 


The  HARFEST  of  The  SEA 


I;' 

I! 


because  from  the  first  she  has  never  taught  him 
rightly  to  respect  her. 

During  these  years  I  was  in  the  good  smack 
Osprey,  with  Skipper  "  Darkie  Jim,"  with  whom 
I  rose  to  be  mate.  He  was  a  great,  powerful 
fellow,  as  hard  as  iron,  yet  as  gentle  as  he  was 
strong,  with  a  hearty  way  with  him  that  made  us 
all  cheer  up,  however  black  things  might  look. 
He  was  a  bit  reckless  at  times,  though.  Once  I 
saw  him  drive  his  fist  straight  through  the  panels 
of  the  cabin  door,  just  because  a  number  of  skip- 
pers, who  were  there  to  share  some  fresh  mutton 
he  had  received  from  home,  said  he  couldn't  do 
it.  On  another  occasion  I  saw  him  catch  by  the 
seat  of  his  trousers  and  the  scruff  of  his  neck,  a 
man  who  had  gone  too  far  in  teasing  him,  lift 
him  above  hi?  own  head,  and  throw  him  over 
into  the  sea  as  he  might  have  tossed  a  kitten.  It 
was  a  fine  day,  and  we  all  set  to  work  and  fished 
him  out  again  ;  but  he  drank  more  water  in  those 
few  moments  than  he  had  drunk  for  many  a  long 
day. 

Darkie  Jim's  irrepressible  spirits  led  him  into 
innumerable  mad  frolics,  but  he  was  far  too  brave 
to  be  a  bully,  and  our  crew  almost  worshipped 
him.     True,  he  had  little  religion  in  the  early 


A  HERO  of  The  FISHING  FLEET  35 
days,  but  he  had  a  great  and  loyal  love  for  his 
"  Old  Dutcheye,"  as  he  called  his  wife,  and  for 
h.s  children,  who  were  afiectionatel"  referred  to 
as  "  Toe-biters." 

On  one  occasion  our  fleet  was  fishing  on  the 
shallow  ground  that  stretches  away  off  the"  Sylt  " 
Fish  were  plentiful  then  on  the  sandy  ground 
there,  but  it  was  a  big  risk  for  so  many  vessels  to 
go  so  far  back  in  shallow  water  in  a  bight  like 
that.     We  were  in  all  a  hundred  and  thirty  sail,  yet 
we  had  such  complete  trust  in  the  capability  of 
our  admiral,  and  were  so  keen  on  getting  more 
fish  than  any  one  else,  that  in  we  all  went.     Our 
skipper  ventured  in  the  farthest  of  all,  as  he  al- 
ways did.  without  thought  of  consequences.    We 
made  a  big  haul  that  day,  right  in  sight  of  the 
land.    At  sundown  the  wind  was  still  off  shore 
and  only  a  nice  fresh  fishing  breeze  at  that     So 
the  admiral  showed  his  lights  for  a  first  night  haul 
over  the  same  ground,  and  we  crept  in  even  nearer 
under  the  shore.     The  wind   freshened   before 
midnight  into  a  two-reef  breeze,  and  some  of  the 
more  cautious  men  hauled  their  nets  and  made  a 
good  offing  for  themselves.     Not  so  our  skip- 
per     He  was  cheerily  singing  away  in  one  of  his 
reckless  moods,  and  the  httle  Osprey  went  flying 


MMHtti 


36 


Th,  HARFEsr  of  The  SI./ 


l!. 


along,  her  lea  rail  almost  under  water,  but  with 
never  an  inch  of  canvas  shortened,  for  she  was 
gathering  the  haddocks  up  into  her  net  in  a  way 
that  meant  niuie  comforts  for  the  "  Toe-biters." 

Suddenly  the  wind  chopped  right  round  onto 
the  land.  Rockets  at  once  flasiied  up  into  the 
sky,  telling  the  fleet  to  haul  at  once,  and  make 
for  the  open.  The  Icemost  vessels  were  ten 
miles  from  the  admiral,  however,  and  long  before 
they  got  their  nets  on  board  a  very  nasty  sea 
was  running.  For  it  took  us  a  long  while  to 
haul,  in  those  days,  and  a  sea  makes  very  quickly 
in  shallow  water.  Our  big  catch  now  nearly 
proved  our  ruin,  for  Darkie  Jim  never  lost  a  had- 
dock that  he  could  possibly  save,  and  it  took  us 
full  two  hours  to  heave  nearly  three  tons  of  fish 
aboard.  There  were  no  Hghts  in  sight  when  we 
started  to  beat  to  windward,  for  we  learnt  after- 
wards that  the  skippers  of  no  less  than  forty 
vessels  had  chopped  away  their  valuable  gear  to 
save  time,  and  perhaps  their  vessels  and  crews. 
Not  so  "  Darkie  Jim  " :  he  wasn't  built  that  way. 
But  that  is  the  only  reason  that,  in  spite  of  his 
gigantic  strength  and  coolness,  we  were  the  last 
vessel  to  start  into  the  wind's  eye  that  night. 
After  what  seemed  to  me  ages,  we  were  at  last 


yl  HERO  0/  The  FISHING  FL££T   3; 

all  r«dy.  and  ,hc  bow-line  was  loosed,  and  away 
tore  our  staunch  little  craft. 

It  was  pitch  dark  now,  and  wc  could  neither 
see  when  we  must  tack  nor  tell  if  we  were  gain- 
■ng  or  losing  ground.  To  help  the  vessel  do 
he..df  justice  in  that  confined  space,  the  skipper 

12  Z  T  ?'■ ""  "^"  '™"  ■"'"'^  "^  '""W 
hear  the  breaker,  on  the  land  roaring  above  the 

howhng  of  the  storm.    Having  ordered  all  hands 
below,  the  skipper  himself  remained  on  deck 
lashed  to  the  wheel.    Only  at  the  moment  wc' 
were  head  on  to  sea,  at  the  tacks,  were  we  allowed 
to  rush  forward  and  change  over  the  sails.    We 
hadn  t  shortened  an  inch  of  canvas,  and  now  we 
could  not  .f  we  wished  to.    Luckily  our  topsails 
had  blown  .0  rags  and  eased  us  a  little,  for  the 
wmd   kept   freshening.    Of  cou.e  we  had  all 
the  dr,v,ng  power  we  could  handle,  and  the  only 

marvel  was  that  none  of  the  huge  seas  hit  us,  or 
came  aboard.    How  many  hundreds  must    us. 

have  m,ssed  us,  I  don't  know.    Now  and  again 

the  ta.l  end  of  a  spiteful  one  that  had  missed  us 
by  not  more  than  a  yard  or  so,  would  drop  a  ton 
of  water  over  our  rail  as  it  swung  by,  wash  down 
the  cabm  stairway,  and  give  us  a  foot  of  water 
on  the  floor  to  show  us  what  it  could  have  done 


38  Tht  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

if  only  it  had  hit  us  fair  and  square.  But  these 
things  only  served  to  make  the  skipper  more 
cheery,  and  as  he  sang  out, "  All  right  below, 
boys  ? "  he  always  added  one  of  his  quaint  bits 
of  talk  to  the  sea,  chaffing  it  as  if  it  was  alive 
and  could  understand  him. 

Hour  after  hour  went  by,  the  skipper  still  at 
the  wheel,  nursing  the  ship  he  loved  so  as  to  save 
every  inch  of  ground,  and  dodging  the  seas 
rather  by  instinct  than  by  sight,  for  morning 
seemed  ♦o  be  endlessly  delayed.  Like  all  good 
things,  however,  it  came  to  hose  who  waited, 
and  we  could  make  out  that  owing  to  the  neces- 
sity of  nursing  the  ship  from  the  breaking  seas, 
we  had  put  very  little  distance  yet  between  us 
and  the  breakers  under  our  lea.  The  s?< 
seemed  as  fresh  as  paint  still,  prattling  to  the 
ship  as  if  it  were  one  of  his  own  "  Toe-biters," 
encouraging  her  and  praising  her  v/henever  she 
escaped  a  sea  by  a  hair's  breadth. 

Suddenly  he  sang  out,  "  Come  and  take  the 
wheel,  Bill.  There  is  some  poor  devil  to  wind'ard 
clean  swept.  I'll  go  aloft  and  try  to  make  him 
out." 

I  was  at  the  wheel  in  a  second,  for  you  may  be 
sure  no  one  had  his  boots  off  that  night.    The 


I  -- 


A  HERO  of  The  FISHING  FLEET  39 
skipper  went  aloft,  and  as  we  rose  and  fell  over 
the  seas.  I  could  see  h,m  straining  his  eyes  through 
the  driving  spume.  At  last  he  came  aft  again 
clawmg  his  ^vay.  like  a  great  crab,  by  the  life-' 
line  he  had  rigged. 

"  It's  the  Sarah  and  Anne,"  he  roared.    "  She's 
clean  swep'.     The  men  are  still  on  deck,  and 
they've  got  a  bit  o'  buntin'  on  the  mast  stump 
Skipper  Jack's  got  kids  ashore.     We  must  make 
a  try  for  them." 

"  You  don't  mean  you  are  going  to  try  and 
get  the  boat  out,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Here,  take  the  wheel,"  he  fairly  shonfed  at 
me.  "  There's  no  time  to  waste.  Don't  -ave 
the  wheel,  yourself.  Bill,  and  for  God's  sake  watch 
her.  I'll  go  below  and  get  some  one  to  come 
With  me.  All  hands  on  deck  !  "  he  bawled,  and 
almost  as  soon  as  he  spoke  the  three  others  came 
tumbhng  up  from  below. 

"What?  get  the  boat  out  in  a  sea  like  this? 
Why,  there  ain't  no  chance  whatever." 

We  were  all  certain  of  that,  and  thought  it 
simply  madness  to  suggest  it. 

"I'd  go  with  you  anywlieres.  skipper."  said 
Tom.  our  third  hand,  "if  there  was  the  leastest 
scrap  of  a  chance.    But  a  life-boat  wouldn't  live 


,i  ( 


} 


i-l' 


40  Thi  HARFEST  rf  Tht  SEA 

in  ^hat  sea,  and  besides  we  could  never  get  hci 
out  anyhow." 

"  Forrard  and  get  the  gripes  loose,"  he  shouted. 
"  Bill,  old  lad,  heave  her  to,  and  have  an  eye  to 
the  boat  as  long  as  you  can.  Takj  the  thip 
home  if  I  don't  come  back.  I'll  go  alone,  if  no 
one  will  come." 

In  next  to  no  time  the  boat  was  on  the  rail, 
and  almost  as  quickly  she  was  flying  down  the 
deck  before  a  lumping  sea,  her  bilge  stove  in  as 
she  struck  the  capstan  with  a  heavy  thud. 

"  Quick,  boys  !  that  old  paraffin  tin  and  some 
spun-yarn,"  he  shouted ;  and  almost  before  we 
knew  it,  she  was  on  the  rail  again,  a  great  patch 
of  tin,  oakum,  canvas  and  tarry  spun-yarn  over 
the  hole. 

"  Now ! "  he  roared ;  and  then  a  sea  shot  her 
out  like  an  arrow,  taut  to  the  end  of  the  stout 
bass  painter,  and  in  a  moment  she  was  hammer- 
ing into  our  lea  quarter  and  the  skipper  was  in, 
his  jack-knife  open  in  his  teeth ;  and  the  next,  the 
painter  cut,  he  was  only  a  speck  visible  as  his 
boat  rose  on  the  crest  of  a  larger  wave  than 
usual.  But  not  before  Tom  had  tumbled  into 
the  boat  with  him. 

•'  I  didn't  expect  to  see  you  any  more,  Bill," 


J  HERO  of  The  FISHING  FLEET    41 

he  told  me  afterwards, «'  but  I  couldn't  stay  and 
see  the  old  man  go  alone." 

The  very  first  sea  they  met  swept  away  both 
their  oars  like  so  much  matchwood,  and  all  Tom 
can  remember  is  that  he  and  the  skipper  set  to 
work  bailing  for  their  lives  with  their  sou'westers, 
for  the  same  sea  had  more  than  half  filled  the 
boat.     Tom  never  thought  a  moment  about  the 
Sarah  and  Anne.     He  never  had  thought  they 
had  any  chance  of  reaching  her,  anyhow,  so  he 
forgot  all  about  everything  but  getting  the  water 
out,  till  suddenly  a  sea  flung  them  alongside 
something  like  a  sunken  rock.     Somehow  the 
water  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat  was  alive  with 
half  a   dozen   men,  and   then   once  more  they 
were  clear  again,  and  working  away  at  the  water 
as  before.     You  must  know  we  never  row  our 
small  boats  to  windward,  even  when  boarding 
fish  in  fine  weather:  we  always  run  down  to  them 
after  they  have  drifted  past  the  fish  carrier,  and 
pick  them  up. 

Though  I  had  sent  our  deckie  to  the  cross-trees 
the  moment  the  boat  left,  we  had  lost  sight  of 
both  her  and  the  wreck  almost  immediately,  and 
had  seen  nothing  since.  What  should  I  do? 
Run  to  leeward  on  a  fool's  errand  and  so  lose  all 


i 


^h 


If  i 

I   < 

£■  * 


U 


4*  The  HJR^EST  of  The  SEA 

the  ground  we  had  fought  so  hard  for  all  night, 
or  accept  the  inevitable  and  let  the  story  of  one 
more  fisherman's  self-sacrifice  be  forgotten,  ex- 
cept in  the  desolate  little  home  to  which  we  could 
carry  nothing  but  a  flag  half-mast  ?    "  Mind  you 
take  her  home  safe  if  you  can,"  had  been  almost 
the  skipper's  last  words.     For  the  ship  was  his 
own,  t.  >c  one  result  of  his  life's  labours,  and  all 
that  there  would  be  left  to  provide  for  his  loved 
ones.     Our  cook  lad,  only  fifteen  years  of  age, 
was  eager  to  risk  everything  for  the  skipper's 
life;  for  the  man  had  been  a  father  to  him.     It 
looked  hke  running  into  the  very  gates  of  hell, 
as  we  looked  at  the  mass  of  white  foam  behind 
us,  and  the  pitiless  headlands  on  each  side  of  us, 
now  plainly  visible.    We  seemed  caught  like  a 
rat  in  a  trap. 

Thank  God  we  tried  it.  While  I  sent  the  lad  for- 
ward to  loose  the  sheets,  I  was  watching  a  chance 
to  let  her  pay  off  without  being  caught  in  the 
trough  of  the  sea.  At  last  we  were  round,  and  on 
we  flew  before  the  gale,  till  it  seemed  certain  that 
to  go  any  further  meant  striking  the  sands.  I 
was  about  to  "  heave  to  "  again  and  have  one  more 
struggle  to  save  the  ship,  when  the  deckie  began 
waving  frantically  over  our  starboard  bow.    He 


I 


A  HERO  of  The  FISHING  FLEET    43 

swung  down  the  throat  halyards  in  half  a  moment, 
and  as  I  wrenched  at  the  tiller  lanyards  with 
every  ounce  of  strength  I  had.  to  give  her  a  port 
helm,  I  heard  him  yelling, "  The  boat !  the  boat ! " 
He  ran  for^vard  with  the  log  line,  and  stood 
waiting  as  the  good  old  Osprej^  shot  up  into 
the  wind  once  more.  There  was  suddenly  a  loud 
crash.  It  was  the  boat  pounding  itself  to  pieces 
against  our  counter;  and  then  I  saw  eight  figures 
sprawhng  on  our  deck. 

I  have  often  noticed,  when  the  storm  seems  to 
h-\ve  done  its  worst  and  has  been  beaten,  it  sud- 
u>nly  goes  down.  So  it  was  on  this  occasion. 
A  very  slight  change  in  the  wind's  direction  gave 
us  just  what  we  needed,  so  that  on  our  very  next 
tack  we  were  able  to  head  up,  till  we  cleared  the 
Southern  Head,  and  forty-eight  hours  later  we 
were  abreast  of  dear  Old  Flamborough  light. 

Such  things  were  done,  and  soon  forgotten,  by 
men  that  neither  expected  nor  received  reward 
or  praise  for  their  noble  deeds.  Their  only  spur 
was  the  generous  impulse  of  their  own  big  hearts, 
and  their  real  mead  the  fact  that  they  proved 
themselves  worthy  of  the  traditions  of  the  sailor. 


i 


\r 


'fl 


The  SEA  CLAIMS  "DARK/E  J/M" 

THOUGH  the  purpose  of  this  story  does 
not  involve  Skipper   Darkie  Jim   any 
further— since  I  left  soon  after  to  take 
charge  of  my  first  vessel,  the  Si/ver  Spray— yet  I 
must  tell  how  the  greedy  sea  at  length  claimed 
him  too  as  its  victim.    This  chapter  of  the  ever- 
lengthening  tale  of  tribute  included  in  the  "  price 
of  fish,"  I   had   from  the  lips   of   the  deckie, 
"  Ernie,"  who  was  still  with  him  at  the  time.    It 
was  on  the  14th  of  October,  two  years  later. 
The  fleet  was  away  down  North,  fishing  well 
below  the  "  tail  end  o'  the  Dogger."     It  had 
been  dark  and  dirty  all  day,  and  though  we  car- 
ried no  barometer,  we  knew  we  were  in  for 
something  worse  than  usual.     We  were  sure  of 
it,  when  at   sundown  the  admiral  signalled  for 
the  fleet  to  heave  to  on  the  starboard  tack,  and 
not  to  put  out  the  nets  for  fishing. 

There  was  a  dead  calm  for  a  few  minutes ;  I 
had  just  gone  below  at  six  o'clock  for  a  mug  of 

44 


The  SEA  CLAIMS  ''- DARKIE  JIM''    45 

tea.     We  had  reefed  the  Silver  Spray  down  all 
snug,  clewed  down  the  hatches,  and  made  all 
ready,  lashing  the  helm  and  hauling  the  bowline 
well  home  on  our  storm  staysail.    As  I  took  up 
my  mug,  a  clap  of  thunder  boomed  out  over- 
head, and  a  splatter  or  two  of  rain  fell  on  deck. 
Then  there  was  a  rustle,  increasing  to  a  roar,  and 
a  whole  gale  of  wind  hit  the  ship  like  a  sledge- 
hammer.    Every  timber  in  her  shivered  like  an 
aspen,  as  she  fell  over  almost  on  her  beam  ends, 
flinging  every  movable  thing  into  the  lee  bunks. 
Then  she  seemed  to  be  in  doubt  for  a  moment 
what  to  do,  but  at  last  slowly  righted  herself,  and 
went  staggering  away  like  a  drunken  man.    It 
was  dark  as  ink,  but  as  our  vessels  had  all  put 
good  sea  room  between  one  another,  there  was 
nothing  to  do  now  but  to  set  the  watch  and  turn 
in  and  sleep  as  usual,  for  it  is  always  well  in  a 
fisherman's  life  to  put  in  sleep  when  you  get  a 
chance:  more  than  once  have  I  nearly  died  from 
the  need  of  a  nap. 

That  night  I  happened  to  go  on  deck  at  mid- 
night to  see  that  all  was  right,  when  suddenly  I 
noticed  a  green  light  now  and  again  bobbing  up 
under  our  lee  quarter.  I  knew  at  once  that  there 
was  some  one  coming  the  opposite  way.    The 


in. 


■      i  I 

I     1 


46  The  HARDEST  of  The  SEA 

wind  was  so  heavy,  and  the  driving  spray  so 
cold,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  make  anything 
out ;  but  I  guessed  at  once  it  was  another  fleet 
crossing  through  us  on  the  other  tack.  To  un- 
derstand what  this  meant  on  such  a  night,  you 
must  understand  that  no  one  is  steering  any  of 
the  vessels.  It  would  be  folly  to  attempt  to  do 
so,  for  we  have  such  a  low  free-board  that  a  sea 
may  sweep  the  deck  at  any  moment,  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact  we  always  lash  the  tiller  hard-a-lee, 
and  the  vessel  keeps  on  dodging  up  head  to  sea 
of  herself,  while  the  watchman  stands  or  crouches 
in  the  companion  hatch,  ready  to  jump  below  at 
a  moment's  notice. 

So  there  was  nothing  to  be  done,  and  our  one 
hundred  and  thirty  vessels  had  to  thread  their 
way  through  over  a  hundred  coming  the  oppo- 
site way,  and  just  take  their  chance  of  going  free 
or  being  suddenly  hurled  into  eternity.  Twice 
we  were  within  an  ace  of  being  cut  down,  and 
twice  we  missed  another  poor  fellow  by  a  hair's 
breadth.  It  sent  a  queer  kind  of  feeling  through 
you,  as  all  of  a  sudden  you  saw  death,  in  the 
form  of  a  huge  black  phantom  with  great  red 
and  green  eyes,  loom  up  out  of  that  Egyptian 
darkness,  flit  past  within  a  few  feet  of  you,  and 


ii 


r 


'■'I 


i 


I 


Tht  SEA  CLAIMS  '' DARKIE  JIM**   47 

as  suddenly  disappear  into  the  night  again. 
Alas,  they  did  not  all  fare  as  well  as  we  did,  and 
many  a  brave  soul  went  out  into  the  darkness 
that  night. 

When  at  length  daylight  came,  things  were  no 
better,  for  the  wind  kept  veering  against  us,  and 
was  slowly  but  surely  driving  the  fleet  into  the 
breakers  of  the  shallow  water  on  the  bank. 
Some  of  the  vessels  tried  to  spread  more  canvas 
to  weather  the  shoals,  or  to  gather  way  enough 
to  tack ;  but  canvas  went  like  paper  in  that  furi- 
ous storm,  and  by  midday  it  was  evident  we 
should  have  to  try  and  cross  the  shoals.  It  had 
not  gone  twelve  before  the  boom  of  the  admiral's 
gun-rockets  told  the  fleet  that  the  best  thing  to 
do  was  to  hard  up  and  try  to  run  over  the  break- 
ers into  the  quieter  and  deeper  water  on  the  south 
side  the  bank.  None  of  us  but  knew  that  these 
rockets  sounded  the  death  knell  for  some  of  us ; 
for  the  mountainous  seas  rise  perpendicularly, 
and  fall  over,  crushing  with  their  awful  weight 
anything  that  may  come  in  their  way.  There 
were  five  fathoms  of  water  in  the  shallowest  place, 
however,  and  there  was  not  much  danger  of 
actually  striking  bottom.  As  I  write  I  can  live 
over  again  that  half-hour,  when  we  hung  on 


r 


i  I. 


■n 


P 


48  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

and  hung  on  to  the  last  moment,  before  going 
below    to    snatch    what    might    be    our    last 
meal,  in  silence.     The  mate  and  I  then  lashed 
ourselves  to  the  wheel,  while  the  third  and  fourth 
hands  let  go  the  sheets,  and  then  ran  back  to  the 
companion  to  wait  events.    The  little    Silver 
Spray  paid  ofT  hke  a  bird,  shipped  not  one  drop 
of  water  as  she  turned,  and  almost  before  we 
knew  it,  was  scudding  in  ferocious  leaps  and 
bounds  over  mountains  and  troughs,  till  in  less 
than  an  hour,  to  our  own  amazement,  we  found 
ourselves  in  comparative  safety  under  the  shelter 
of  the  bank. 

Not  so,  however,  the  gallant  Osprey.    Ernie 
told  me  that  during  the  first  half-hour,  they  saw 
two  smacks  disappear  close  to  them.    One  was 
so  close  that  they  saw  her  put  her  bowsprit  right 
under  water,  stand  for  a  moment  on  end.  and 
then  disappear  with  all  on  board.     Indeed   so 
close  were  they  to  her,  that  they  ran  right  over 
the  top  of  her  wreckage.     But  their  own  turn 
came  at  last.    Just  as   he  thought  they  were 
reaching  the  deeper  water,  he  heard  Skipper  Jim. 
who  had  been  working  like  a  giant  at  the  wheel 
to  keep  the  vessel  from  yawing,  shout,  "  Look 
out!    Water!"    He   just    had  time  to  see  a 


The  S£J  CUIMS  ^^DARKIE  JIM"    49 

mountain  falling  on  them,  and  then  himself  fell 
head  over  heels  down  the  stairway.     Over  and 
over  the  Osprey  seemed  to  go,  everything  ap- 
parently being   smashed  to  atoms.     The  very 
ballast    broke    through    the    flooring    and    fell 
on  Ernie,  knocking  most  of  the  life  out  of  him, 
while  tons  of  water  rushed  below  sweeping  every- 
thing fore  and  aft  in  a  heap.     But  a  fisherman 
fights  to  the  end  for  his  life,  and  as  the  water  in 
the  cabin,  which  more  than  half  filled  it,  would 
have  drowned  him  in  a  few  minutes  if  he  re- 
mained below,  he  had  to  try  and  crawl  up  on 
deck. 

Up,  did  I  say  ?    Yes,  up_fcr  somehow  the 
smack  was  still  keel  down.    It  was  no  easy  mat- 
ter to  get  on  deck,  for  the  stairs  were  broken, 
and  the  companion  wa^  go....     But  the  ruin  be- 
low was  nothing  to  the  i  /ilderness  on  deck.     Not 
a  stick  was  left  standirg  abaft  the  stump  of  the 
mainmast.    Mizzen,  bul-.-arks,  stanchions,  hatches, 
capstan,  wheel  and  trawl  beam  had  all  gone,  and 
with  them  every  vestige  of  the  crew.     Even  the 
two  boys,  who  had  been  with  Ernie  in  the  hatch, 
had  gone  with  it.     Marvellous  to  relate,  as  if  by 
the  special  intervention  of  Providence  on  his  be- 
half, the  boat  was  still  lashed  in  place  by  her  stout 


^v 


H 


f*iti, 


50  The  HARFEST  of  The  SEJ 

chain  gripes.     For  the  sea  had  struck  ♦.he  Osprey 
crosswise   and  partly  missed  her  bows.     True, 
some  loose  piece  of  wreckage  had  struck  her,  and 
badly  cracked  the  boat's  bilge.     But,  though  her 
oars  also  were  gone,  Ernie  saw  here  his  only  pos- 
sible refuge.     Getting  to  her  with  difficulty,  he 
managed  to  stuff  the  crack  with  strips  from  his 
shirt.     Then,  however,  it  still  seemed  that  all 
chance  was  gone,  for  he  was  quite  unable  alone 
to  get  her  over  the  side.     Hastily,  however,  he 
gathered    everything    he    could  find  into  her, 
climbed  in,  cut  the  lashings  of  the  gripes,  and 
waited  for  the  end. 

It  was  evident  ^he  Osprey  could  not  keep  afloat 
many  minutes.  She  was  already  almost  level 
with  the  water,  which  Ernie  had  noticed  was 
much  quieter.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  must 
have  been  already  well  ac  s  the  bank.  He  said 
it  seemed  to  him  years  ti.  i.  he  sat  there,  wonder- 
irg  what  drowning  felt  like,  but  without  any  fear 
cf  it.  Suddenly  the  unexpected  happened.  A 
rather  heavier  swell  washed  sullenly  over  the 
half  submerged  deck,  and  lifting  the  boat  carried 
it  away,  right  through  where  the  rail  and  bul- 
warks had  once  stood.  Ernie  realized  that  he 
was  safe  from  being  sucked  down,  when  the 


I! 


Thi  SEA  CLAIMS  '' DARK  IE  JIM"    51 

Osprey  should  make  her  last  obeisance  to  the 
waves.  Hastily  he  strung  together  everything 
he  had  available  that  would  float,  and  soon  had  a 
fair  sea  anchor  out,  his  little  craft  riding  head  to 
sea,  and  making  good  weather  of  it.  One  more 
streak  of  luck  (or  shall  we  say  overruling  of 
Providence  ?) :  Ernie  and  his  tiny  craft  were 
sighted  and  picked  up  before  night  by  a  vessel 
that,  like  our  own,  had  safely  crossed  the  bank. 

It  was  a  shattered  remnant  of  a  flet.  that 
crowded  into  the  Humber  a  few  days  later,  and 
a  terrible  sight  that  met  us  as  one  by  one  the 
cripples  straggled  home.  For  twenty-five  smacks 
were  missing  with  all  hands,  and  two  hundred 
and  seventy-two  men  had  perished  in  one  night, 
leaving  a  hundred  widows  to  mourn  their  loss. 

T  "•"  ilso  is  the  price  of  fish. 


fi 


■I. 
.1 


VI 
The   COMING   of  The   GOSPEL 

ODD  as  it  may  seem,  though  I  was  a  skip- 
per in  charge  of  a  vessel,  my  apprentice- 
ship had  still  another  year  to  run.     And 
as  every  member  of  the  crew  was  an  apprentice 
also,  it  was  a  cheap  ship  to  its  owner,  for  none 
of  us  got  regular  pay,  but  only  what  he  liked  to 
give  us,  according  to  our  articles.    Another  of 
the  apprentices— my  great  chum,  all  these  years 
—Tom  Blake,  was  also  a  skipper,  and  so  we  al- 
ways used  to  arrange  to  sail  together  and  make 
our  times  at  home  tally,  also.     We  used  to  be 
called  the  "  Twins."     When  you  saw  one  of  us, 
you  saw  the  other.     Indeed.  Tom  was  already 
engaged  to  my  girl's  sister,  and  when  we  got  our 
papers  back  and  we.^  free  to  work  for  ourselves, 
we  were  both  married  on  the  same  day.    So  we 
settled  to  live  side  by  side  in  Grimsby,  so  tha. 
our  wives  should  be  company  for  one  another 
when  we  were  away  at  sea. 
It  was  the  custom  then  for  the  more  pushing 

52 


Tht  COMING  of  The  GOSPEL         53 

men  to  mortgage  a  vessel  from  their  owners,  and 
call  it  their  own,  working  it  just  as  if  it  was.    The 
owners  supplied  them  with  all  the/  needed  and 
charged  them  with  it.     As  security  they  held  the 
ship's  papers,  and  stopped  so  much  of  the  earn- 
ings as  they  liked,  each  year,  to  pay  off  the  inter- 
est and  a  part  of  the  capital.     Thus  they  had  no 
risk  if  a  vessel  didn't  pay,  for  they  foreclosed, 
and    only   the    tradesmen   weren't    paid.     The 
owner,  too,  insured  against  the  vessel's  being  lost. 
If  she  did  well,  I  Know  to  my  cost,  my  owner  at 
least  did  not  suffer.     Not  one  in  a  hundred  of 
the  men  who  were  thus  working  out  their  ships 
ever  got  to  own  them,  for  if  it  seemed  that  the 
owner  was  going  to  lose  control  of  one,  it  was 
easy  for  him  to  insist  on  some  new  expense,  such 
as  new  decks,  or  a  new  suit  of  sails.     The  ad- 
miral, as  he  earned  more  than  the  rest,  had  more 
chance.     But  as  a  rule  when  any  man  did  get  to 
own  his  ship,  it  was  too  old  to  be  of  any  value. 
It  was  a  fine  thing,  though,  tc  ^x   ible  to  say  the 
boat  was  one's  own  ;  at  least  we  .;  rd  to  think  it 
so.     It  made  you  seem  more  independent,  though 
you  really  were  never  your  own  master;  for  you 
had  to  drag  on,  and  drag  on,  year  after  year, 
while  only  the  owner  made  anything  out  of  it. 


4 


,1 


r  i 


h   IV 


111 


I 


,i! 


J 


54  The  HARFEST  of  The  SEA 

So  Tom  and  I,  now  that  we  were  free,  each 
"  owned  "  his  own  vessel.  I  had  the  Wild  Wave 
and  Tom  had  the  Rover.  They  were  charged  to 
us  at  $S,cjoo  and  |l7,ooo  respectively. 

Those  were  rollicking  days  for  us  young  fel- 
lows.    Many  a  spree  we  had  together;  and  to 
me  Tom  always  seemed  the  life  of  the  party,  as 
he  certainly  was  the  leader  on  every  occasion. 
Once  the  herring-men  had  been  having  great 
trouble  with   the  Dutchmen,  who  used  to  sail 
along  in  the  dark  with  a  four-bladed  knife  hang- 
ing over  their  bow,  called  a  "  devil."     By  cutting 
the  nets  adrift,  they  did  great  damage  and  caused 
great  loss.    So  one  day,  when  we  sighted  a  large 
Dutch  drift-net  vessel,  Tom  dressed  himself  up  in 
an   old  policeman's  uniform  and  went  aboard. 
He  told  the  skipper  he  was  a  customs-house  offi- 
cer, and  had  come  to  seize  him  for  illegal  fishing. 
Somehow  he  got  the  fellow  properly  frightened, 
and  we  had  the  fun  of  seeing  the  Dutchman 
following  in  Tom's  wake  all  day,  as  if  he  were  a 
prisoner  of  war.    Eventually  he  made  the  fellow 
pay  up  some  schnapps  and  all  the  tobacco  and 
cigars  he  had  aboard,  in  order  that  Tom  should 
not  say  any  more  about  it. 
Another  time  we  were  both  adrift  from  the 


'i 


( 


k 


m 
ii; 


'i: 


The  COMING  of  The  GOSPEL         55 

fleet,  and  having  a  lot  of  fish  on  deck  that  we 
couldn't   keep,  we  ran   into   Ostend  to  sell  it. 
There  was  a  lot  of  ill-feeling  between  the  Dutch- 
men and  our  "  single  boaters,"  or  men  who  fish 
apart  from  the  fleets,  for  by  running  their  fish 
into  the  Dutch  ports,  they  lowered  the  price  of 
Dutch  fish.     The  morning  that  we  came  in,  a 
great  crowd  of  them  collected  on  the  quay  and 
began  stoning  our  vessels.     A  lot  of  their  little 
soldiers  were  sent  down  to  keep  the  peace,  but 
the  crowd  nearly  drove  them   into  the  water. 
Meanwhile  Tom  had  collected  his  crew  and  made 
them  put  on  their  oil-frocks  and  sou'westers,  to 
protect  them  from  the  stones,  and  black  their 
faces;  then  taking  their  belts,  buckle-end  out, 
they  sallied  forth  and  drove  a  path  through  the 
whole   lot,   till   they  reached    the   fish-market. 
There  they  secured  creels  to  put  the  fish  in,  and 
came  back  in  triumph.     They  soon  had  their 
fish  sold  then,  and  ours  too ;  and  we  got  to  sea 
again  as  quick  as  we  could,  having  made  a  good 
venture  by  the  visit.     Indeed,  nothing  seemed  to 
go  wrong  with  us,  and  our  luck  became  the  talk 
of  the  fleet — though  I  am  convinced  a  man  makes 
his  own  luck,  and  the  man  who  haunts  the  grog- 
shops is  the  one  that  complains  the  most  of  ill-luck. 


I: 

I 

J 

If 


56  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

News  soon  gets  about,  even  at  sea,  and  before 
long  the  owners  were  talking  about  my  success. 
I  hadn't  heard  of  this,  so  I  was  mighty  surprised, 
one  time  home,  when  I  wasn't  yet  twenty-five 
years  old,  to  get  a  letter  from  the  owners  offer- 
ing me  the  Flags.  My,  but  it  was  a  proud 
moment  when  I  first  hoisted  the  broad  flag  of 
the  Red- White  fleet  on  my  topmast  stay,  and 
when  I  saw  my  wife  and  Tom's  on  the  pier  head, 
waving  to  us,  as  we  first  put  to  sea  with  an  ad- 
miral's sign  of  office  floating  aloft ! 

Every  morning  when  it  was  possible  to  board 
fish,  the  carrier  had  to  come  to  the  admiral  for 
orders,  and  we  generally  used  to  hold  a  skippers' 
meeting  in  the  cabin  to  discuss  the  movements 
of  the  fish  and  how  we  should  be  likely  to  do 
the  best  with  them.  It  sent  quite  a  queer  feeling 
through  me  as  I  sat  there  and  told  men  who  had 
been  skippers  while  I  was  still  in  that  old  Lon- 
don garret,  what  they  tnust  do,  and  how  I  in- 
tended to  take  the  fleet;  for  as  long  as  I  was 
admiral,  I  always  had  my  way. 

It  was  after  one  of  these  meetings  one  fine 
morning,  when  I  had  just  come  on  deck,  that  I 
noticed  a  vessel  ahead  of  us  flying  a  red,  white 
and  blue  flag,  with  a  lot  of  letters  on  it.    I  am 


The  COMING  of  The  GOSPEL         57 

ashamed  to  say  I  could  not  read  them,  so  I 
called  Tom  and  asked  him  what  the  letters  spelt. 
There  were  three  lines,  and  they  ran  like  this : 


Trust  Christ  More 


BETHEL 


God  is  Love 


"What's  little  Billy  up  to  now?"  I  said. 
"  What's  he  got  to  do  with  religion  out  here  ? 
I  thought  that  was  for  the  women-folk  and  those 
that  stayed  home." 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Tom.  "  Cor  ;  along. 
Let's  go  and  pay  him  a  visit." 

I  was  half  afraid  to  go  with  Tom.  I  thought 
he  would  be  sure  to  be  up  to  some  of  his  monkey 
tricks  again,  and  little  Billy  CuUington  was  a 
splendid  fellow,  a  favourite  with  every  one ;  and 
after  all  it  was  no  business  of  ours,  if  he  had 
turned  religious.  However,  there  never  was  any 
saying  •«  No,"  when  Tom  had  made  up  his  mind 
one  should  say  "  Yes."    So  along  we  went,  half 


5«  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

expecting  to  find  Billy  with  a  face  as  long  as  a 
yard  measure,  and  for  all  we  knew  a  big  pair  of 
black  gloves.  We  found  him,  however,  as  merry 
as  a  cricket,  and  all  Tom's  chaff  and  fooling 
couldn't  put  him  out  of  temper.  He  told  us  he 
was  a  Christian  now,  had  been  "  converted,"  and 
didn't  intend  to  fish  any  more  on  Sundays,  but 
was  going  to  try  and  "  keep  prayers  aboard,  in- 
stead." 

"  Well,  Billy,"  I  said,  "  that  may  suit  you  all 
right,  if  you  have  a  mind  for  it,  but  I  guess  the 
owners  will  want  fish  and  not  prayers." 

The  little  chap  made  us  stay  to  dinner,  and  as 
he  was  just  from  home  and  had  supplies  of 
"fresh,"  we  made  no  objection.  As  we  went 
away,  though,  Tom  couldn't  resist  the  fun  of 
cutting  away  the  leg  of  fresh  mutton  which  was 
hanging  over  the  stern,  and  giving  a  "mutton 
patty  "  next  day.  He  invited  Billy  also,  not  of 
course  telling  him  where  the  mutton  came  from, 
but  just  to  do  his  very  best  to  tease  the  little 
chap  into  losing  his  temper.  But  it  was  all  no 
good.  Billy  held  his  own  all  right,  and  when 
Sunday  came  and  I  gave  the  fleet  the  signal  to 
"  down  trawl,"  blessed  if  little  Billy  didn't  keep 
his  foresail  a'weather,  and  his  precious  "  Bethel  " 


|i  i 


The  COMING  of  The  GOSPEL         59 

flag  a-flying  for  prayers,  just  as  if  he  was  admiral 
on  his  own  account. 

It  was  soon  the  gossip  of  the  whole  fleet,  and 
many  were  the  bets  on  how  long  he  would  stick 
to  it,  what  the  owners  would  say,  etc.,  though  on 
the  last  point  we  were  all  pretty  well  agreed. 


VII 


1 1 


k'i. 
'  i 


Dy4RK  DAYS  for  The  MISSIONER 

WELL,  Billy  did  extra  well  that  trip.  I 
think  that  even  the  owners  must  have 
had  a  little  superstition  about  it  at 
first,  for  though  of  course  his  ship  had  no  Sun- 
day fish  notes,  and  some  of  the  grog-lovers  had 
taken  good  care  the  owners  should  know  how 
they  were  being  robbed,  they  said  never  a  word 
to  Billy  about  it.  So  he  came  to  sea  again 
more  determined  than  before,  and  with  his  old 
"  Bethel "  flag  as  high  as  ever.  I  noticed  now 
and  again,  what  a  lot  of  visits  Tom  was  begin- 
ning to  pay  him,  and  somehow  Billy  seemed  to 
be  getting  quite  an  influence  over  him. 

One  glorious  morning  on  the  next  trip,  when 
there  wasn't  a  breath  of  win.'  to  help  the  fleet 
make  a  day  haul,  I  dropped  at  d  Tom  early  in 
the  day,  and  asked  him  to  come  and  spend  the 
day  with  me  on  the  old  coper.  For  the  first 
time  in  his  life  he  wouldn't  come  with  me,  and  at 
last  I  got  it  out  of  him  that  he  had  promised  his 

60 


DARK  DATS  for  Tht  MISSIONER     6i 

wife,  Annie,  that  he  wouldn't  go  to  the  grog-ship 
any  more. 

"  Fact  is,  I'm  tee-total,  Bill,"  he  said. 

"  Come  along— that  won't  keep  you  from  a  bit 
of  fun.  When  did  you  ever  see  me  take  too 
much  ?  "  I  answered. 

"No,  no,  Bill;  it  isn't  that.  I  don't  know 
what's  come  over  me,  but  I  can't  come,  old  lad. 
I  really  can't." 

It  made  me  a  bit  angry,  that  did.  So  I  went 
off,  and  for  the  first  and  last  time  in  my  life 
stayed  aboard  one  of  those  hells,  till  the  thirst 
from  its  aniseeded  brandy  had  made  a  fool  of  me. 
It  was  "  Just  von  leedle  drop,"  at  first.  But  that 
was  a  drop  that  made  you  need  two  more  after 
it. 

I  know  it  made  Tom  feel  down  a  bit,  too,  for 
like  the  good  genius  that  he  always  was  to  me, 
he  was  aboard  at  daybreak  next  morning,  and 
just  made  me  come  off  and  spend  the  day  on  the 
Rot'er.  As  he  told  me  afterwards,  a  packet  of 
good  things  from  home  came  off  by  the  cutter 
that  very  night,  and  he  said  he  believed  it  was 
"  sent "  there  on  purpose  to  help  him ;  that  by 
himself  he  felt  he  didn't  know  what  to  do. 

I  pretty  well  guessed  how  things  were  working, 


MHBM 


•*«; 


I 


II 


r 


f. 


62  7»/  HARVEST  rf  The  SEA 

and  wasn't  surprised  to  hear  Tom  had  been  to 
chapel  with  his  wife,  last  time  home,  though  he 
had  said  nothing  to  me  about  it.  I  knew  he  had 
never  been  inside  a  place  of  worship  before,  ex- 
cept when  he  was  married. 

Soon  after  this  things  took  a  turn  with  Billy. 
We  all  somehow  had  an  eye  to  how  he  was  get- 
ting on.  Perhaps  it  was  because,  as  a  rule,  there 
was  nothing  to  talk  about  out  there,  but  fish, 
fish,  fish.  But  we  did  a  lot  more  minding  other 
people's  business  than  we  had  any  right  to. 
Upon  my  word,  looking  back  now,  it  might  have 
been  a  series  of  women's  tea-meetings. 

Billy  did  badly  that  next  trip,  and  when  he 
was  home  the  owner  met  him  on  the  dock  and 
swore  at  him,  and  told  him  he'd  "  have  to  give  up 

his  d d  Bethelling,  or  get  out  of  his  ship." 

Poor  Billy  was  awfully  down  on  his  luck  then, 
though  he  left  the  dock  flying  the  "  Bethel "  flag 
at  his  masthead.  For  somehow  everything  went 
against  him,  and  the  fleet  made  some  big  Sunday 
hauls.  I  don't  think  he  did  badly  in  reality.  That 
is,  he  made  good  paying  trips,  but  his  owner  was 
a  money-grubber,  and  he  couldn't  get  over  the 
good  hauls  that  he  thought  Billy  was  losing.  So 
next  time   he   gave  him  his  choice— to  stop 


*viir' 


DARK  DAYS  far  The  MISSION ER     63 

Bethelling  or  clear  out — thougli  you  must  know 
he  was  a  regular  church-goer  himself,  and  with 
his  family  always  made  a  great  show  on  Sun- 
days. 

All  that  voyage,  Billy  worked  his  level  best, 
and  his  crew  stood  by  him  nobly,  for  they  all 
liked  him.  I  noticed,  too,  that  Tom  was  a  good 
deal  more  aboard  with  Billy.  I  supposed  it  was 
just  sympathy.  But  one  fine  Sunday,  when  we 
all  shot  for  a  haul,  our  mate  sang  out, «'  Why, 
lo  jk  there,  skipper,  there's  the  Rover  with  a  flag 
up,  following  Billy  CuUington.  I  do  believe  he's 
turned  pious,  too;  though  if  report's  right,  it 
ain't  time  to  be  Bethelling  now,  as  the  owners 
aren't  going  to  have  any  of  it." 

This  news  also  soon  went  home,  and  though 
Tom  owned  his  own  ship,  it  seemed  to  have  got 
the  owners  well  frightened.  There  was  among  us 
a  regular  old  boozer,  who  had  once  been  skipper 
of  a  ship  but  had  lost  it  for  his  drunken  habits, 
and  had  now  sunk  to  be  cook  under  a  skij  per 
who  once  had  sailed  with  him  a  his  own  cook 
boy.  This  fellow  was  so  much  impressed  by  the 
harrowing  losses  the  owners  were  likely  to  sus- 
tain, that  he  sent  home  exaggerated  accounts  of 
all  that  went  on.    He  could  do  it  with  all  the 


A 


u 


'I* 


'3    i 


64  Tb,  HARDEST  ,f  Tht  SEA 

better  grace,  because  there  wasn't  the  least 
fear  of  his  falling  into  Billy's  evil  ways  him- 
self. 

So  long  before  the  blow  fell,  Billy  knew  it  was 
coming,  and  the  thought  of  his  wife  and  children 
suffering  want  through  his  doings  was  almost 
more  than  he  could  bear.    Many  a  yarn  about 
him  Tom  used  to  come  to  me  with,  and  many  a 
plan  as  to  how  he  could  cheer  the  little  fellow 
up.    Indeed,  to  this  day  I  believe  a  large  factor 
in  Tom's  own  conversion— and  so  through  that 
the  fight  for  Sunday  freedom  at  sea— was  the 
love  he  bore  Billy,  and  the  desire  to  share  his 
persecution  and  so  help  him  to  bear  it.    Thus 
indirectly  does  the  devil,  so  I  believe,  always  tend 
to  overreach  himself,  and  lend  a  hand  to  his  own 
undoing. 

We  weren't  long  before  we  heard  it  at  sea. 
His  owner  had  asked  Billy  for  a  promise  before 
he  would  let  him  go  to  sea  again,  that  he  would 
"  Fish  just  like  any  other  man,  Sunday  or  Mon- 
day."  Billy  had  been  a  wretched  man  all  the 
time  the  cloud  only  threatened,  but  now  it  had 
burst,  he  spoke  up  like  the  true  man  he  always 
was,  and  told  his  owner,  right  there,  that  sorry 
as  he  was  to  lose  his  ship  (and  he  had  done  right 


I 


DARK  DATS  for  The  MISSIONER     65 

well  in  her  this  last  trip,  again),  \: .    ouldn't  give 
the  necessary  promise. 

Just  to  make  it  all  the  harder  for  him,  the  slack 
time  was  coming  on  in  the  fisheries,  right  in  the 
heat  of  sumii  I .  So,  whether  for  that  reason,  or 
because  the  owners  were  agreed  to  force  the  men 
to  do  as  they  always  had  done,  the  owner  did  not 
send  Billy's  ship  to  sea,  and  no  one  else  would 
give  him  a  jerth.  So  he  had  to  walk  about  on 
the  dock  doing  nothing;  day  after  day,  and  seeing 
all  his  little  horru.  goincr  to  the  pawn-shop,  while 
his  ship  was  tied  up  to  the  quay,  idle.  I  would 
more  than  gladly  have  offered  the  little  fellow  a 
berth  on  the  Wi/d  Wave,  but  my  crew  k-sr.t 
with  me  right  along,  and  I  couldn't  wtM  '.v.r;: 
them  out  to  make  a  berth  for  some  one  e!  _•. 


iSP*n9«n> 


VIII 


I 


n 


l\ 


The  MISSION-SHIP  TAKES  US  by  SURPRISE 

JUST  about  this  time  one  of  our  carriere, 
coming  out  from  London,  brought  off  a 
visitor,  who  wa:    himself  a  religious  man. 
His  name  was  Mr.  Mather.     His  coming  excited 
no  surprise,  for  visitors   often  came  off  for  a 
holiday,  and  to  get  the  sea  air.    He  was  aboard 
of  me  once  or  twice,  and  seemed  to  take  the  state 
of  things  at  sea  a  good  deal  to  heart,  especially 
about  the  ,.; -og-ships.     When  I  told  him  of  little 
Billy,  he  lairly  cried  about  it.     He  went  back 
home,  like  all  the  rest,  and  we  soon  forgot  that 
he  had  been  with  us.     But  some  months  after 
there  began  to  be  some  talk  about  a  mission-ship 
coming  out  to  the  fleet,  which  was  to  fish  all  the 
week  and  keep  prayers  on  Sunday. 

Of  course  there  was  a  lot  of  talk  about  it. 
What  good  was  a  mission-boat?  How  many 
would  go  praying  on  Sundays,  even  if  it  were 
too  calm  to  fish  ?_at  any  rate,  if  there  was  a 
chance  of  a  spree  on  the  coper.    Some  said  it 

66 


4 


u 


'I 


Till.     i:\SI(i\      KMMI.     Tin:     l,.,.;,,;,.  ^ 


m 


tRiSNti .  '-I.  -rii*?:. V.  W;  t'-  V. :»;,>,■!(•.' 


The    MISSION. Sff/P  67 

was  all  a  pack  o'  nonsense.     They'd  like  to  see 
any  religion  that  would  satisfy  North  Sea  fisher- 
men like  a  grog-ship.      It  was   cheaper  grog 
fishermen  wanted,  and  more  of  it.     They  thought 
the   Gover'ment  ought  to  send  out  /ne  grog, 
like  they  did  in  the  navy.     Wasn't  a  fisherman 
as   good   as   a  jack  tar,  any  day  o'  the  week, 
they'd  like  to  know.     Fishermen  didn't  get  their 
rights,  not  by  half.     They'd  make  short  work  of 
any  o'  them  canting  preachers.     And  so  on,  and 
so  on.  with  all  the  usual  sententious  wisdom  of 
the  tap-room.     Most  of  us  thought.  I  must  say. 
that  the  whole  matter  would  end  in  talk,  while  if 
such  a  thing  ever  did  come  up.  the  most  charitable 
of  us  gave  her  three  months  before  "  they  "_ 
whoever    they  might    be-- would  be   mighty 
sorry  they  ever  had  anything  to  do  with  her." 

One  fine  day.  however,  an  old  Yarmouth 
vessel  called  the  £,,si^n  joined  the  fleet.  I 
knew  her  well,  for  I  verily  believe  I  could  tell 
almost  any  vessel  on  the  North  Sea.  in  those 
old  days,  as  soon  as  her  spars  topped  the 
honzon.  She  had  been  painted  up  all  new,  and 
each  bow  was  decorated  with  a  blue  flag,  with 
the  words  "  Mission  to  Deep  Sea  Fishermen  "  on 
•t.     Of  course  every  one  had  to  go  and  have  a 


6t 


The  HARVEST  of  The  SB  J 


h 


'k 


M». 


I 


look  at  her,  for  new  things  at  sea  are  rare,  and 
the  old  ship  was  like  a  new  pin  in  her  fresh 
paint,  dressed  as  she  was,  too,  in  all  the  bunting 
she  could  muster.  But  a  greater  surprise  was 
still  in  store  for  us ;  for  when  our  boat  got  along- 
side, who  should  bob  up  over  the  rail  but  little 
Billy  Cullington,  grinning  like  a  Cheshire  cat ! 

"  What  cheer,  Billy  ?  What  are  you  doing 
there  ?  I  thought  you  were  on  show  as  a  skele- 
ton, by  now." 

"  O,  there's  a  kick  in  the  old  horse  yet,"  he 
replied.  "  Thank  God  I've  got  a  job  at  last  that 
don't  need  no  Sunday  fishin'.  They've  given  me 
charge  o'  this  craft,  and  though  she  sails  from 
Yarmouth,  I'm  to  fish  along  with  the  Red- White 
fleet,  so  long  as  they  don't  kick  me  out.  But 
come  aboard  and  have  a  look  at  her.  There 
am't  nothin'  what  bites  aboard,  and  there  ain't  no 
charge  for  looking  at  her." 

It  certainly  was  score  No.  i  for  "  the  mission 
blokes,"  as  the  men  called  the  managers,  to  have 
chosen  Billy  for  skipper.  We  all  felt  at  home 
aboard  at  once,  and  so  we  were,  too.  Nothing 
could  tire  Billy  of  showing  her  off.  The  ship 
was  more  to  him  than  any  mother's  darling. 

"  You  ain't  seen  the  dispensary,  have  yer. 


.-:  nfomaBt^sieis^^iafarms 


The   MISSION-SHIP 


69 


skipper?  Why,  I'm  half  a  doctor,  now.  Bin 
up  to  a  London  horspital  nigh  three  months ; 
and  look  here,  I've  got  the  ambulance  certificate 
here.  I  wish  you  had  a  pain  inside  yer.  I'd  jest 
like  yer  to  try  one  o'  them  mixtures.  They're 
a'most  dound  to  cure  yer.  You  see  it's  written 
on  the  bottle  what  it's  for.  This  here's  cough 
mixture.  That's  the  one  suits  our  crew  best.  It 
takes  away  their  appetite  fine.  Dick's  bin  a 
tryin'  a  lot  o'  them,  so  I  could  make  sure  just 
what  they'd  be  good  for  out  here.  You  see  we 
don't  have  all  them  things  they  have  ashore." 

Then  he  would  run  on  about  the  cabin,  or  the 
harmonium,  or  anything  he  thought  we  ought  to 
notice. 

"  You  see  that  there  kettle,  skipper  ?    How 
many  do  yer  think  that  would  make  a  mug  for  ? 
Well,  just  about  forty  men.     I  tried  it  on  with 
Jimmy  here.     He  can  drink  as  much  as  six  o' 
most  men.  and  it  took  him  two  whole  days  to 
empty  it.     My  orders  is, '  Always  have  a  good 
mug  o'  tea  for  any  one  that  comes  aboard,  and 
just  try  to  make  every  one  comfortable.'     There's 
checkers  and  heaps  o'  games  in  that  box  there, 
and  there's  a  pile  o'  readin'  in  the  locker— pic- 
tures, too,  most  of  it,  so  any  one  can  read  it.     O' 


' 


I;  ■  < 


^^ 


70  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

course  you  won't  mind  taking  a  bundle  with 
yer." 

And  so  he  rattled  on  till  he  really  had  us  all 
as  interested  in  the  ship  as  he  was.  I  almost  felt 
it  was  rather  unkind  not  to  have  a  pain  some- 
where in  my  vitals,  just  to  let  the  little  fellow 
have  a  try  on  me  with  one  of  his  mixtures.  In- 
deed, he  was  so  eager  to  see  that  every  one  got 
all  they  wanted,  ••  just  to  give  the  ship  a  warmin'," 
that  it  was  no  fault  of  his,  if  no  one  gave  the  dis- 
pensary a  chance  before  morning. 

Well,  there  was  a  lot  of  talk  about  her  again. 
Some  sneered  and  said  she  wasn't  wanted,  and 
"  they  didn't  see  what  good  she'd  do,  anyway." 
But  at  least  one  or  two  were  real  glad  to  see  her, 
and  among  them,  none  so  glad  as  Tom.     He  was 
aboard  the  morning  she  arrived,  almost  before 
she  got  there.    And  it  seemed  at  first  as  if  he 
was  going  to  leave  the  Rover  and  live  aboard 
her.     He  told  me  it  was  a  very  queer  thing,  but 
he'd  been  hoping  and  hoping  that  the  mission 
vessel  would  come  to  our  fleet.     And  it  all  came 
out  afterwards  that  he  and  Annie  and  my  wife  had 
been  praying  for  it  for  a  long  time.     Still  they 
seemed  awfully  surprised  about  it,  when  it  did 
come,  as  if  they  didn't  much  trust  that  God  Al- 


•-«  ■vi«irai'»fnT» 


The    MISSION-SHIP  71 

mighty  would  hear  them.  To  Tom  it  meant  a 
great  deal.  For  the  one  thing  that  had  kept  him 
back  from  acting  like  Billy,  and  telling  folk  he 
was  a  Christian,  was  that  he  had  no  trust  in  him- 
self, and  was  dreadfully  afraid  he  might  make  a 
mess  of  it.  For  though,  as  I  have  told  before, 
Tom  was  in  every  spree  going,  he  was  as  weak 
as  ditch  water,  when  it  came  to  saying  "  No  "  to 
any  one. 

The  mission-ship  proved  no  loafer.     No  one 
could  say  she  was  sponging  on  others  to  make  a 
living  for  her.    She  fished  as  hard  as  any  other 
boat,  and  did  her  other  work  besides.     Of  course 
she  did  no  fishing  on  Sundays.    She  kept  the 
day  from  sundown  on  Saturday  till  sundown  on 
Sunday ;  she  had  no  fish  to  board  on  the  carrier 
on  Sunday  morning,  and  was  as  clean  as  a  new 
pin  all  day.     What  seems  odd  is  that  no  mission 
vessel  from  that  day  to  this  ever  has  done  seven 
days'  fishing  in  the  week,  and  yet  they've  done 
as  well  as  any  of  those  that  did.     Year  in,  year 
out,  no  vessels  have  done  better  than  they  have, 
though  none  of  them  has  ever  shot  a  net  on  a 
Sunday.     It  was  a  good  thing,  too,  that  they  had 
lots  o'  work  to  do.     Many  a  man  wanted  to  go 
aboard  her,  and  yet  didn't  like  to,  as  he  had  no 


I      I 


72 


The  HJR^EST  of  Tht  SEA 


business  there.  But  seeing  the  crew  was  so 
worked,  almost  every  morning  some  one  would 
drop  aboard  to  ••  help  them  get  through  with 
fish."  For  they  learnt  that  Billy's  pay  depended, 
like  every  other  skipper's,  on  what  he  caught, 
while  he  lost  a  lot  of  time  by  having  always  to 
be  first  to  reach  the  carrier,  and  last  to  leave  it, 
tending  on  every  one.  In  this  way  every  one 
got  a  chance  to  get  aboard,  on  every  day  that 
the  fleet  "  boarded  fish."  The  very  fact  that  they 
could  do  something  to  help  the  mission-ship  out, 
gave  a  lot  of  the  men  a  personal  interest  in  her, 
and  even  those  who  laughed  loudest  at  the  idea 
of  such  a  ship,  often  went  aboard  for  a  yam,  and 
to  lend  little  BiUy  a  hand. 


U 


tiki 

'i 


ilMNMIIi 


I      I 


\  'f' 


I, 


II 


IX 

LITTLE   BILLY'S    FIRST   SERMON 

I  HAD  made  Billy  a  solemn  promise,  the  day 
he  showed  us  the  ship,  that  on  the  first  fine 
Sunday  I  would  "  heave  the  fleet  to  "  in  the 
morning,  and  come  aboard.  As  it  turned  out  it 
*  -was  as  smooth  as  oil  the  very  next  Sunday,  so  I 
kept  my  promise  and  went  aboard.  The  vessels 
lay  all  about,  rolling  lazily  on  the  swell,  some 
mending  their  nets  and  looking  to  their  canvas. 
It  was  a  pretty  sight,  as  the  smacks  with  their 
tanned  sails  helped  to  show  off  the  mission-ship 
with  her  spotless  white,  and  her  great  blue  flag 
at  the  masthead,  now  and  again  shaking  out  a 
bit  as  she  rolled.  While  sure  enough,  there  at 
the  mizzen  gaff  end,  hoisted  out  on  the  boat-hook 
staff,  was  the  very  "  Bethel"  flag  that  had  got  Billy 
into  all  his  trouble.  The  hold  was  laid  out  with 
fish  boxes  for  seats,  and  the  hatches  being  off, 
the  sunlight  poured  down  and  made  it  a  mighty 
cheerful-looking  place  for  service.  We  could  all 
do  a  bit  of  singing.     Some  of  us  could  read  a 

73 


iam 


iafiM^AA^k.a>tt^ 


MICROCOPY   RESOLUTION   TBT  CHART 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


1.0 


m 

1^ 

1^ 
1^ 

1^ 

Hi 

1b 

i^-° 

b 

^^ 

i.8 


^  APPLIED  IIVHGE    Ir 

^S"^  :653   East    Main   Street 

S^S  Rochester.    New   York         14609       USA 

'•^^  (716)   482  -  0300  -  Phone 

^S  (7' 6)   288  -  5989  -  Fa« 


P 


M-' 


74  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

bit  and  most  of  us  knew  the  words  of  some  of 
the  hymns.  The  service  was  fine,  though  it  did 
seem  queer  to  me  at  that  time  for  a  lot  of  us 
fishermen  to  be  going  on  like  that.  I'm  sure  if 
there  had  been  any  landsmen  there,  we  should 
have  cleared  right  out,  and  much  more  so  if  the 
mission  had  sent  us  out  a  full-fledged  parson. 

I  should  like  you  to  attend  a  fishermen's  serv- 
ice at  sea  nowadays.     I'm  sure  you'd  be  surprised 
to  hear  the  men  say  their  prayers.     They  do  it 
like  fishermen  do  most  things,_just  as  if  they 
meant  it.    And  though  they  can't  sing  like  some 
of  the  choirs  in  the  churches,  there's  no  doubt 
whatever  that  they  can  "  make  a  cheerful  noise 
together."     They  always  sing  the  kind  of  hymn 
that  has  a  good  swing  to  it.  and  generally  one 
that  has  a  good  chorus  too.     When  once  you 
got  men  like  "  Singing  May  "  or  "  Teddy  Steb- 
bins  "  under  way,  with  Billy's  harmonium,  they'd 
hardly  stop  even  for  the  plum  duff  that  we  al- 
ways had,  to  mark  Sunday  dinners.     I  can't  re- 
member all  Billy  said  for  his  fii^t  sermon,  but  at 
any  rate  every  one  understood  it.     For  he  never 
did  mince  matters,  and  as  he  knew  some  of  us 
were   uncommon   bad  sinners,   he  didn't  mind 
saymg  so.    It  kept  all  the  men  listening,  espe- 


LITTLE  BILLrS  FIRST  SERMON  75 
daily  when  he  talked  like  any  man  would  on 
deck,  and  didn't  use  a  single  word  that  every 
one  couldn't  understand.     All  the  men  said  after- 
wards that  they  had  "  liked  it  well  enough."     I 
think  some  of  them  that  Billy  hit  hardest  said 
they  liked  it,  just  to  make  it  seem  they  didn't 
think  it  was  them  he  was  talking  of.     Still,  Billy 
had  a  wonderful  winning  way  with  him  always: 
perhaps  that  is  why  no  one  was  hurt.     I  think 
what  made  it  seem  so  good  was,  that  every  one 
knew  that  Billy  believed  and  meant  every  word 
he  said.     He  wouldn't  have  been  surprised  one 
bit.  I  know,  if  suddenly  the  sky  had  opened  and 
the  blessing  he  wanted  all  hands  to  get,  had 
come  pouring  down  like  a  thunder-shower. ' 

I  suppose  I  ought  to  tell  how  the  day  ended, 
but  it  isn't  a  very  easy  task.     Billy  somehow 
managed  to  keep  me  and  the  vice-admiral  and 
Tom  yarning  on.  after  all  the  othere  had  gone 
And  then  somehow  he  got  a  chance,  and  started 
to  talk  right  straight  to  us.     AH  he  wanted  us  to 
beheve  was  that  God  loved  us,  and  even  on  the 
North  Sea  cared  whether  we  went  to  the  devil 
or  didn't.     I'd  never  thought  much  about  it.  and 
even  when  Tom  had  spoken  about  it  once  or 
twice  lately,  it  hadn't  seemed  very  likely.    I  knew 


fi  f 

t 


'1  i 


76  The  HJRFEST  of  The  SEJ 

o<  course,  that  my  girl  would  give  her  eyes  to 
get  me  to  care  about  that  sort  of  thing ;  but 
somehow,  though  I  liked  her  to  go  to  chapel 
and  all  that,  it  had  always  seemed  for  women 
and  such  like,  and  not  for  me.     A  great  deal  of 
what  happened  that  night  was  due  to  Tom,  for  I 
couldn't  but  see  what  a  different  man  it  had 
made  of  him.     He  was  as  gentie  as  a  woman  in 
thinking  for  others,  and  yet  was  as  smart  do  he'd 
ever  been  with  the  fish,  and  fuller  of  his  fun  than 
even  when  we  were  lads  together.     Indeed,  if 
one  man  ever  loved  another  I  loved  Tom,  and 
would  have  gone  over  the  side  any  time  for  him 
at  a  moment's  notice. 

Well,  we  weren't  much  used  to  kindnesses  in 
those  days,  and  I  remember  at  last  Billy's  last 
argument.  "  I  know  I'm  not  made  for  talkin'," 
he  said.  "  If  I  knowed  how  to  persuade  yer,  I'd 
do  it  right  here.  Look  here,"  he  said,  as  a 
bright  thought  seemed  suddenly  to  strike  him, 
and  he  went  off  to  his  cabin.  In  a  moment  or 
two  he  returned  with  three  great  warm  new 
woollen  mufflers— the  best  we  had  ever  seen,  I 
suppose. 

"Yer  see  them  mufflers.    Well,  some  ladies 
on  the  land,  what  never  saw  yer,  knitted  them 


LITTLE  BILLrS  FIRST  SERMON  77 

mufflers.  There's  the  whole  thing  in  them 
mufflers  right  enough.  Now  I'm  to  give  yer 
these  if  yer'U  admit  it." 

"  What's  in  them,  Billy  ?  "  I  asked  as  I  unrolled 
one  of  them.    And  a  noble  piece  of  work  it  was 
too.     Must  have  taken  a  powerful  lot  of  their 
time,  besides  the  wool.    "  Why,  love's  in  'em," 
he    shouted    triumphantly;    "love,    o'    course. 
Can't  yer  see  it  ? "     I  tried  to  look  as  if  I  ex- 
pected it  to  be  there  wrapped  up  in  a  lump,  and 
couldn't  find  it.    "  Why.  Bill,"  he  said, "  I  believe 
you  know  what  I  mea     only  yer  don't  want  to 
own  it.     Those  ladies  never  saw  you,  did  they  ? 
No.     Nor  you  never  saw  them,  nor  never  will. 
I'd  jest  like    yer  to  take   them   mufflers,"   he 
pleaded.    "  I  know  they're  better  than  anything 
I  can  say." 

I  didn't  say  anything  for  a  time.  The  fact  is, 
I  didn't  feel  like  it.  ^hen,  before  I  could  think 
of  anything  he  added,  "  How  much  more  must 
the  blessed  Saviour  have  loved  yer,  when  He 
gave  His  own  life  for  yer." 

It  seems  very  strange,  looking  back  on  it  all 
these  years  after,  how  so  little  a  thing  seems 
to  turn  the  current  of  a  man's  whole  life.  Tom 
broke  right  down  there,  and  said  he'd  made  up 


¥1 


78  The  HJRFESr  of  The  SEA 

his  m  .d.    And  for  the  first  time  I  can  remem- 
ber there  were  tears  in  my  eyes,  too,  for  our 
vice-admiral,  he  said  just  the  same.    The  end  of 
it  was  that  from  that  time  to  this,  I  have  done 
my  best  to  live  as  a  man  ought  for  whom  Christ 
gave  His  life.    And  though  I  know  I  have  made 
a  poor  hand  of  it  often  enough,  especially  when 
thmgs  went  wrong  with  the  fleet,  and  fish  was 
scarce,  and  it  seemed  as  if  some  of  the  men  were 
taking  advantage  of  me  just  because  they  hated 
my  ''setting  myself  up  as  better  than  any  one 
else,"  I'm  of  the  same  mind  tg-day  as  I  was  for 
the  first  time  that  night.    And  if  I  can  hold  on 
till  perhaps  the  sea  claims  me,  too,  at  last,  as  it 
has  two  out  of  us  three  already,  I  shall  have 
nothing  to  regret  that  I  ever  went  aboard  the 
mission-ship  Ensign. 


'iii 


n 


!! 


I! 


c 


H 

'A 


< 

S 

c 

U5 


IVH^T  The  GROG-SHIP  did  for  SKIPPER 

TOM 

MANY  a  time  after  that  I  was  able  to 
do  Billy  a  good  turn  by  heaving  the 
fleet  to  on  a  fine  Sunday  morning,  and 
giving  every  man  a  chance  to  go  aboard  to  serv- 
ice.    The  owners  soon  stopped  saying  anything 
about  it ;  for  there  grew  up  quite  a  number  of 
skippers  that  threw  in  their  lot  with  the  Chris- 
tian men,  and  the  owners  soon  found  out  that 
these  were  the  best  men  they  had.     They  fished 
none  the  worse,  and  they  sold  nothing  from  their 
ships  to  the  copers ;  and  a  man  who  went  drink- 
ing on  the  coper  wouldn't  have  called  himself  a 
Christian.     For  when  a  fisherman  does  go  so  far 
fts  to  let  the  rest  know  that  he  is  "  on  the  Lord's 
fiide,"  he  intends   doing  something  at  it,  and 
doesn't  waiit  it  flung  in  his  face  that  he  is  a 
hypocrite;   not  if  he  can  help  it,  that  is.     In 
fact,  a  half-and-half  Christian  had  a  hot  time  as 
long  as  it  lasted,  though  as  a  rule  that  wasn't 

79 


: 


i  , 

i 

j. 

ll 

i 

t 
•  1 

1 

Hi.} 


So 


Tht  HAkVESr  of  The  SEA 


very  long,  for  there  wrisn't  anything  to  gain  by 
going  to  service  at  sea,  as  there  might  be  if  all 
your  neighbours  saw  you  marching  your  family 
along  to  church  on  the  land,  where  it  "  looks  re- 
spectable" anyhow.  But  in  spite  of  it  all  the 
grog-ships  did  enough  trade  to  let  us  see  pretty 
well  that  we  couldn't  expect  to  drive  them  out  all 
together.  And  now  and  agai:.  there  would  be 
an  old-tim"  spree,  and  an  old  time  "  -ccident." 
As,  for  instance,  when  Skipper  Fox  ran  down 
the  Rose  of  England  in  broad  daylight,  and 
drowned  every  man  aboard.  Of  course,  it  never 
came  out  at  the  inquiry  that  he  was  drunk ;  but 
he  had  enough  grog  in  him  that  morning  to 
make  most  men  see  six  ships,  instead  of  one. 

The  coper's  great  lure  was  tobacco.  Nearl; 
every  fisherman  smokes  his  pipe :  even  Billy  him- 
self did.  Once  some  one  had  said  they  didn't 
see  how  he,  a  Christian,  could  smoke,  and  asked 
him  how  i^e'd  like  the  Lord  to  come  and  find 
him  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth.  The  questioner 
admitted  that  once  he  had  "  used  tobacco  himself, 
but  gave  it  up,  and  after  three  days  never  wanted 
it  any  more."  Now  Billy  never  gave  his  answers 
in  a  hurry.  So  he  just  said, "  Well,  I  don't  think 
of  the  Lord  that  way,  nor  o'  His  coming.     Per- 


The   GROG-SItlP 


8i 


haps  I  ',vojldn't  like  Him  to  come  and  find  a 
great  fid  of  this  he-  e  pork  in  my  mouth.  But 
I'll  find  out  and  let  yer  know." 

Billy  gave  up  smoking  for  a  whole  month  from 
that  day,  and  every  night  and  morning  he  prayed 
that  if  the  Lord  didn't  wish  him  to  use  tobacco, 
He  would  take  the  taste  for  it  away  in  that 
month.    But  at  the  ei;  i  of  the  time  Billy  got 
under  way  again,  for  he  Scud  he  found  he  wanted 
it  just  as  bad  as  ever.     Moreover,  I've  head  him 
S£/»  he  "  knew  he  could  smoke  unto  the  Lord." 
For  he  was  able  to  go  aboard  many  a  craft  where 
he  knew  he  wouldn't  be  wanted  otherwise,  if  he 
just  carried  a  spare  bit  of  tobacco  with  him.    I 
know  my  wife  now  often  wishes  I  would  sit  down 
and  take  a  smoke.     I  suppose  I  do  get  in  the 
way  at  times,  for  I  feel  a  bit  unhandy  myself, 
now  and  again,  in  among  those  white  curtain 
jimcracks  sh  .  has  in  our  parlour.     Still,  I  don't 
grudge  any  man  the  only  bit  of  fire  he  has  on 
deck,  for  his  six  lonely  hours  on  watch,  night 
after  night,  m  winter.     Anything  is  company, 
when  a  man*   all  alone.     I've  known  men  count 
the  hours  till  they  called  the  watch  by  the  six 
smokes  and  the  six  pots  of  tea  they  would  get 
while  the  net  was  down. 


82 


The  HARVESJ  of  The  SEJ 


1^1 


j-p 


The  great  attraction  about  the  coper's  tobacco 
was  the  price  of  it.  You  see,  those  foreign  ves- 
sels paid  no  duty  on  it,  and  could  sell  it  in  the 
fleet  at  thirty-five  cents  a  pound,  while  to  buy 
it  at  home  we  had  to  pay  a  dollar.  It  was  on 
April  the  i6th,  some  two  years  after  the  mission- 
ship  came  out,  that  Tom  and  I  had  just  joined 
the  fleet — together,  as  usual.  It  was  my  time  to 
take  the  Flags,  and  I  took  the  fleet  over  on  the 
"  Silver  Pits  "  fishing.  There  "^s  a  veritable  to- 
bacco famine  in  the  fleet.  No  coper  had  been 
with  it  for  a  week,  Ihe  weather  being  very 
unsettled,  and  we  being  a  good  way  from  the 
Dutch  coast.  At  last  one  joined  us,  and  half  the 
fleet  went  aboard,  Tom  among  them.  I  heard 
the  whole  story  from  several  hands  after- 
wards. 

It  seems  there  was  a  plot  made  at  once  to 
catch  Tom  if  they  could,  and  make  a  fool  of  him. 
So  they  began  singing  out  to  him,  "  Hullo,  Tom ; 
thought  you'd  got  too  good  to  look  at  an  old 
pal,  when  you  saw  one.  Glad  to  see  you  off  for 
half  an  hour,  Tom.  Going  to  stay  and  have  a 
taste  with  us,  I  suppose,"  and  so  on.  Tom  took 
it  all  in  good  part,  as  he  always  did,  laughed,  and 


: 


.:!    ? 


Tht   GROG. SHIP 


83 


went  below  to  get  his  tobacco.    « I  believe  lus 
bit-o'-frock  has  made  Tom  half  a  woman,"  one 
sang  out.    '<  Come,  Tom,  here,  half  my  glass 
for  old  friendship's  sake."     At  last,  when  they 
had  taunted  him  because  'le  was  afraid  he'd  get 
drunk,  and  was  afraid  he  couldn't  control  him- 
self, and  with  all  sorts  of  good-natured  chafi", 
they  hit  him  v    his  weak  spot,  and  at  last  got 
him  to  take  the  "von  leedle  drop.     Shest  for 
goot  vellowship."    And  so  Tom  took  that  stuff 
with  vitriol  in  it  that  made  his  throat  burn  for 
another  "  leedle  drop,  only  nodings."     And  so 
he  sat  down  among  then,  and  soon  they  had  him 
robbed  of  all  his  senses. 

At  night  it  looked  dirty.     Tom's  mate  ''cgan 
to  get  uneasy,  and  wondered  where  the  s      per 
had  got  to.    Just  at  dark  some  one  passing  the 
Rover  shouted, "  Tom's  aboard  the  coper.     You'd 
better  go  and  fetch  him."     So  they  got  the  boat 
out  again,  though  already  the  foam  was  be- 
ginning to  fly,  and  Tom,  drunk   and  helpless, 
was  ferried  back  aboard  his  own  ship.    It  was 
already  high  time  to  be  getting  in  some  canvas. 
Everything  looked  like  a  blow,  and  already  night 
was  on  them.    The  skipper  was  laid  down  on  the 


84 


The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 


:    ! 


deck,  while  the  men  got  the  boat  in,  the  mate 
going  to  the  tiller  himself.  Already  there  was  a 
nasty  lop,  and  as  the  Rover  headed  up,  to  let  them 
get  the  boat  aboard,  a  drop  or  two  of  w?*:er  came 
in  over  the  rail.  Suddenly  in  the  darkness  the 
mate  was  startled  by  the  skipper  staggering  right 
into  him  as  he  held  the  tiller.  The  cold  water 
had  partly  sobered  poor  Tom,  and  he  knew,  by 
some  strange  instinct,  that  all  hands  were  needed 
forward  to  get  the  boat  in. 

"Gi'  me  the  he'm,  Dick,"  he  hiccoughed, 
"and  go  for'ard  and  gi'  'em  a  hand  wi'  th'  boat." 

"  No,  no,  skipper.  You  go  below.  You  ain't 
well.     You  ain't  fit  to  steer  just  now." 

But  the  cursed  drink  had  got  poor  Tom 
turned  into  another  man  altogether,  and  the 
Demon  of  the  Bottle  in  him  shrieked  out,  "  Wha' 
did  I  say  ?  Gi'  me  th'  tiller.  Isn't  th'  Rover  my 
ole  ship  ?  I'll — steer — her — ter — hell,  I  tell  yer, 
if  I  like."  With  that,  mad  in  his  cups,  he 
wrenched  the  lanyard  from  the  frightened  Dick, 
and  leant  for  a  moment  over  the  tiller.  At  that 
instant  a  great  green  sea  rolling  aft  hit  the  rud- 
der, gave  the  long,  low  tiller  a  great  kick,  and 
hove  Tom  over  the  rail  into  the  water. 


F^  I 


^^lt^0m/t 


jUf^. 


The   GROG-SHIP 


85 


It  was  useless  even  to  look  for  him  in  the  dark- 
ness, and  so  the  mate  had  nothing  to  do  but  take 
the  vessel  home,  the  flag  half-mast.  Woree  than 
all  else,  he  had  to  go  and  tell  Annie  that  Tom— 
her  brave,  gentle  Tom— had  gone  out  into  eternity 

— DRUNK. 


If 


,1    ; 


i    ■ 

til 

fl 

; 

? 

f 

' 

jf      1 

f- 

XI 

The  FIGHT  AGAINST  The  COPERS 

YES,— now  it  was  too  late ;  it  came  right 
home  to  us.  Annie  pined  away  from 
that  day.  She  never  could  see  that, 
though  the  old  book  says,  "  No  drunkard  shall 
inherit  the  Kingdom  of  God,"  God  is  greater 
even  than  our  interpretation  of  His  own  book. 
And  that  He  knew  Tom  was  never  a  drunkard. 
God's  ways  are  past  finding  out.  And  I  shall 
always  think  that  Tom's  death  was  necessary  to 
bring  the  fight  with  the  grog-ships  to  an  issue, 
and  so  save  perhaps  many  another  victim  from 
hell  on  earth,  and  a  drunkard's  eternity. 

Little  Billy  called  a  meeting  on  the  mission- 
ship  as  soon  as  we  could  get  together,  and  the 
upshot  of  it  was  that  the  mission-folk  decided  to 
sell  tobacco  on  their  vessels.  But  how  were 
they  to  compete  with  the  foreign  tobacco  in 
price?  The  Government  wouldn't  hear  of  the 
mission  carrying  it  out  even  to  the  high  seas,  in 
bond.    They  said  it  would  lead  to  a  lot  more 

86 


The  FIGHT  AGAINST  The  COPERS   87 

smuggling.  Even  as  it  was,  the  boats  came  in 
often  enough  with  their  furled  sails  stuffed  with 
it,  and  blocks  of  hard  tobacco  nailed  up  every- 
where they  could  stow  it  out  of  sight. 

But  the  managers  of  the  mission  were  deter- 
mined this  time.     They  found  out  that  if  the 
manufacturers  would  let  them  have  it  at  cost 
price,  and  ship  it  for  them  in  bond  to  Ostend, 
they  could  send  the  mission-boats  over  there, 
take  it  out  to  sea  duty  free,  as  the  grog-vessels 
did,  and  then  sell  it  at  twenty-five  cents  a  pound 
(the  grog-ship  charged  thirty-five),  and  still  cover 
expenses.     When  the  first  mission-vessel  got  over 
there,  however,  she  had  her  net  alongside— a  thing 
no  grog-vessel  ever  carried.     So  there  was  yet 
another  difficulty.     For  they  would  not  let  her 
have  it  as  a  trader,  and  she  wouldn't  dare  to  go 
into  Yarmouth  to  get  her  net,  if  she  had  taken 
the  tobacco   on   board.     So  she  had  to  get  a 
"  chum  "  to  take  charge  of  her  net  at  sea,  and 
then  run  in  and  get  what  she  wanted.     More- 
over, as  there  were  not  yet  mission-ships  with  all 
of   the   fleets,  they  made  arrangements  with  a 
couple  of  trustworthy  skippers  in  each  fleet  to 
take  charge  of  a  good  supply.     When  they  had 
to  leave  for  home,  they  always  transferred  the 


Sr( 


n 


i 


88  The  HARDEST  of  The  SEA 

balance  of  their  tobacco  to  another  vessel;  so 
none  of  the  tobacco  ever  went  back  to  England. 
Each  of  these  tobacco-ships  used  to  carry 
a  fathom  of  blue  bunting  a  little  way  up  the 
foretopmast  stay. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  for  the 
grop-ships ;  for  the  tobacco  being  cheaper  and 
just  as  good,  every  one  went  to  the  mission-ships 
for  it.  and  the  other  vessels  began  to  lose  money. 
And  now,  too,  the  Government  let  the  mission 
have  what  had  always  been  refused  before.    A 
bonded  warehouse  was  assigned  to  it  at  Yar- 
mouth, and  the  trouble  and  expense  of  going  to 
Ostend  were  saved.    In  return  the  mission-ships 
undertook    to  send  in   weekly  reports   of   the 
amount    of   tobacco    supplied  to  the  different 
vessels,  and  this  helped  to  stop  smuggling. 

Billy  was  a  happy  man  when  he  found  the 
grog-vessel  was  really  beginning  to  feel  his 
presence.  Many  an  artful  dodge  he  tried,  to 
make  it  as  hard  as  possible  for  the  men  to  get  to 
the  coper  at  all.  He  always  kept  as  far  off  as 
possible  in  the  morning,  that  no  one  putting  a 
boat  out  for  tobacco  would  find  it  easy  to  board 
the  coper  the  same  day.  Moreover,  there  were 
so  many  men  aboard  the  mission-boat,  for  one 


IM 


li 


;? 


fi 


u^ 


c 


The  FIGHT  AGAINST  The  COPERS   89 


C 
if. 


S      J 


thing  or  another,  that  there  was  mor»j  company, 
better  fun  and  a  heartier  welcome  there,  than  on 
the  grog-ship  itself.  So  the  old  grog-ships  were 
driven  out  at  last,  long  before  international 
treaties  made  the  sale  of  liquor  on  the  high  seas 
a  crime  and  rendering  the  vessel  liable  to  seizure 
by  a  gunboat  of  any  nation.  Finally,  even  the 
Tricolour — the  last  to  shelter  them — took  a  stand 
against  the  copers ;  and  so  these  pirates  of  the 
North  Sea  became  a  thing  of  the  past. 

The  mission-vessels  now  began  to  exert  a  much 
greater  influence.  Billy  believed  that  there  was 
only  ottw  thing  to  keep  fishermen  straight.  He 
had  seen  many  a  good  man  safely  weather  the 
wild  northeasters,  and  then  get  wrecked,  body 
and  soul,  when  he  came  into  port.  For  these 
men  have  not  only  great  strong  bodies,  but 
passions  to  correspond,  both  of  which  are  cooped 
up  at  sea  for  months  at  a  stretch ;  so  it  is  not 
surprising  that  they  often  lose  their  self-control, 
when  surrounded  by  the  temptations  of  the  ports. 
There  every  kind  of  net  is  spread  to  catch  the 
sailor,  and  rob  him  of  his  money  and  his  self- 
respect;  and  where  one  is  utterly  unknown,  one 
has  no  fear  of  being  talked  about. 

Billy  believed  the  only  control  strong  enough 


ill  I 


it 


(I 


(    - 
1  ■■ 


90  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

to  help  at  these  times,  must  come  from  above. 
So,  in  spite  of  the  added  work,  he  never  allowed 
a  morning  to  pass,  when  men  came  aboard,  with- 
out his  urging  some  of  them  not  to  go  away 
without  a  word  or  two  of  prayer.  On  a  fine 
morning  this  generally  included  one  or  two  of 
those  swinging  old  hymns  which  every  one  was 
beginning  to  know  now ;  and  often  enough  Billj 
would  give  one  of  his  "  talks,"  or  some  visitor 
from  London  would  give  an  informal  little  ad- 
dress. 

Little  by  little  the  number  of  Christian  skippere 

increased ;  and  the  improvement  in  their  homes  on 

the  shore  was  very  noticeable.     The  magistrates 

often  remarked  that  fewer  fishermen  found  their 

way  to  jail  nowadays ;  while  the  cruelty  to  the 

prentice  lads  almost  ceased.     Sometimes  I  think 

a  little  more  rope's  ending  doesn't  hurt  a  young 

sailor.     Our  laws  would  almost  make  "  Mollies  " 

of  them  nowadays.     Our  chief  magistrate  stated 

that  only  half  the  number  of  police  had  been 

needed  in  the  fishermen's  quarter  when  most  of 

them  were  at  home  {i.  2.,  about  Christmas  and 

Easter),  since  the  mission  had  begun  its  work. 

So  the  prophets  who  had  said  it  was  "  free  grog 

and  less  cant "  the  men  needed,  were  both  right 


Tht  FIGHT  AGAINST  The  COPERS  91 

and  wrong.  For  t^at  religion  isn't  cant  which 
helps  to  make  men  into  new  creatures ;  while  the 
freedom  needed  about  the  grog,  was  freedom 
from  the  devil's  chain,  which  had  made  slaves  of 
so  many  of  the  best  men  amongst  us. 

But  those  who  said    the  "mission  blokes" 
world  soon  be  sorry  enough  they  had  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  it,  were  wrong  altogether.     For 
the  one  little  ship  became  two, and  the 'ato three, 
and  the  three  became  thirtr^n— till  not  only 
was  there  one  for  every  fleet  on  the  North  Sea, 
but  even  with  all  the  single  boaters,  in  the  Bris- 
tol Channel,  on  the  coai.t  of  Iceland,  and  at  last 
with  our  brothers  across  the  Atlantic,  on  the 
wild  coasts  of  Labrador,  the  same  blue  flag  was 
hoisted  to  the  breeze  that  had  meant  a  message 
of  hope  and  of  help  to  seamen  in  their  times  of 
need,  far  away  on  the  wild  North  Sea. 


XII 


THREE  HUNDRED  MILES  to  a  HOSPITAL 


»-r 


Mi  > 


5         I 


lit  ■■ 


r 


I.     5 


THERE  were  other  ways  in  which  the 
mission  was  able  to  lend  a  hand.  Worse 
accidents  often  befell  us,  than  even 
Billy's  surgical  skill  could  cope  with.  Thus, 
Skipper  Jack  Green  was  hit  by  a  heavy  sea  one 
day,  flung  into  the  lee  scuppers,  and  washed  to 
and  fro  on  the  deck  among  the  great  iron  trawl 
heads,  beams  and  other  wreckage.  He  was 
found  lying  half  dead  undei  a  mass  of  rubbish, 
with  his  thigh  badly  broken.  The  crew  got  him 
down  below,  but  they  were  too  f;ightened  to  try 
and  do  anything  for  him.  Billy  must  be  sent  for 
at  all  hazards.  In  oil  frocks  and  cork  life-jackets, 
like  old  knights  in  armour,  they  started  off  in 
such  weather  as  bade  fair  to  add  to  the  number 
of  broken  limbs  needing  his  attention.  They  got 
the  little  fellow,  however,  and  came  back  with 
him  in  triumph,  much  as  if  he  were  a  bundle  of 
his  own  reading  matter. 

When  he  had  been  wrung  out  a  bit,  he  ex- 

92 


To   a    HOSPITAL 


93 


amined  the  case,  and  though  he  had  a  fisher- 
man's hands  more  like  a  great  crab's  than  a 
doctor's,  he  could  ha-  ^le  a  wound  as  tenderly  as 
any  one.  He  at  once  pronounced  the  case  as 
being  too  much  for  him.  Billy's  special  delight 
had  always  been  pains  in  the  "  inside."  ••  So 
many  has  them,  you  see,"  he  used  to  say,  when 
he  was  accused  of  devoting  undue  attention  to 
them.  It  had  to  be  a  very  scattered  man  who 
went  to  him  for  ni».dicine,  and  got  away  again 
without  something  to  put  the  "  inside "  right. 
Indeed,  I  always  thought  of  Billy's  bottle  labelled 
"  Stomach  Mixture, '  when  we  used  to  read  about 
the  widow's  cruse  of  oil.  But  on  this  occasion, 
as  I  have  said,  even  he  had  to  admit  that  the 
famous  bottle  was  inadequate  to  meet  the  case. 

"  You'll  have  ter  go  to  the  horspital.  Jack,"  he 
said. 

The  ship  was  still  rolling  and  tossing,  and  the 
sick  man  groaning,  as  every  movement  sent  a 
fresh  agony  through  him. 

"  Go  to  the  horspital  ?  "  he  replied.  "  No,  I 
couldn't  stand  being  moved  on  deck  again.  It 
would  kill  me,  I  know." 

Billy  was  already  hammering  up  a  fish  trunk, 
and  setting  every  one  to  work  to  make  a  suitable 


1 


fl 


I  i 


J 


f    r       I 


94  Tbt  HJRrEST  rf  The  SEA 

box  to  put  the  injured  limb  in.  When  at  last  he 
had  it  stuffed  well  with  oakum,  he  lashed  it  on 
with  a  good  roll  of  tarry  spunion.  Skipper  Jack 
got  a  little  ease  then,  and  was  grateful  enough. 

"  It'll  be  all  right  soon,  Billy,"  he  said.  "  I  ex- 
pects ril  be  i.o\G  to  get  about  again  in  a  short 
while." 

"You'll  do  no  such  thing,"  -lid  Billy.  "If 
you  can  get  the  vessel  home,  I'm  not  saying  that 
wouldn't  be  the  best  thing.  If  you  can't,  you 
must  go  in  the  carrier  to  horspital,  and  be  sharp 
about  it." 

Billy  knew  what  a  compound  fracture  meant, 
and  that  poor  Skipper  Jack's  thigh  was  badly 
broken  was  plain  to  every  one. 

The  weather  continued  bad,  and  the  wind  con- 
tinued ahead  for  a  passage  home;  so  on  the  third 
day  Billy  insisted  that  Jack  had  better  risk  the 
voyage  to  the  steamer,  th.  ,a  wait  any  longer. 
For  the  skipper  was  in  a  fever,  and  Billy  had 
visions  of  mortification  setting  in. 

"  You'll  have  ter  risk  it,  Jack,"  he  said ;  "  and 

I'm  a-going  ter  risk  it,  too.     My  mate's  going 

ter  keep  the  ship  here,  and  I'm  going  with  you 

to  London  in  the  carrier." 

Already  Skipper  Jack  sh'  wed  signs  of  wander- 


w 


i  .   i 


I.  1 


Jl 


■j 


"I 


If 


i   I 


(A 

u 


< 
O 

n 

M 
i-l 
H 
H 


as 


i  i   i     I 

il  i   I 

!   i     I 


To  a   HOSPITAL 


95 


ing,  so  they  wouldn't  take  him  on  the  carrier 
without  some  one  to  have  an  eye  to  him.     Ferry- 
ing fish  in  bad  weather  is  one  thing,  but  ferrying 
a  heavy  man  with  a  broken  thigh  is  quite  an- 
other.    When,  after  long  waiting,  they  at  last  got 
him  into  the  small  boat  and  alongside  the  steamer, 
their  task  was  only  begun.     The  great  steamer, 
with  her  high  perpendicular  sides  and  no  ladder, 
was  rolling  in  the  trough  of  the  sea ;  and  the  lit- 
tle boat  with  the  helpless  man  in  it  was  now 
buried  under  her  bulwarks  as  she  rolled  towards 
it,  and  again  flung  with  its  keel  almost  on  the 
steamer's  rail,  as  a  green  swell  heaved  up  and 
spun  her  into  the  air.    At  the  critical  moment  a 
cross  sea  came  along,  the  splinting  caught  on  the 
rail  as  it  passed  aboard,  and  poor  Skipper  Jack 
was  more  dead  than  alive  before  he  found  him- 
self on  the  hard  rolling  locker,  waiting  to  face  a 
three-hundred-mile  journey  to  market  with  the 
fish.     The  lashings,  too,  were  all  knocked  adrift 
from  the  injured  leg,  and  the  fracture  ten  times 
worse  than  before.     Billy  never  left  him  a  mo- 
ment till  he  got  him  to  the  great  London  hos- 
pital, and  thereby  saved  his  life.     But  it  was  too 
late,  the  surgeon  said,  to  save  the  limb ;  so  Skip- 
per Jack  never  knew  what  it  was  to  tread  a  deck 


I 


in  I  »: 

■  'i     I 


S       I 

(       I 

H 


II 


96 


The  HARFEST  of  The  SEA 


again,  and  a  hard  time  his  young  family  had,  liv- 
ing on  the  charity  of  the  neighbours  for  the  most 
part,  just  because  there  was  no  doctor  in  the 
fleet. 

Then  again  there  was  my  own  deckie,  Davie 
Page.  The  lad  was  with  me  from  the  time  I 
first  took  over  the  IFild  Wave.  He  was  the 
pluckiest  climber  I  have  ever  seen.  He  would 
come  down  the  after  leach  rope  of  the  topsails 
head  down.  I  don't  think  he  knew  what  fear 
was,  and  he  was  supple  as  a  cat.  Right  out  at 
sea,  he  would  go  up  and  sit  on  the  main  truck,  or 
spin  round  on  it  on  his  stomach.  Once  he  had 
been  trying  some  balancing  trick  on  the  rail, 
when  somehow  he  slipped  and  fell  overboard. 
The  mate  hove  him  a  rope,  and  though  he  could 
not  swim  a  yard,  he  actually  let  go  of  it  with  his 
hands  and  was  hauled  aboard  as  if  he  were  a  cod- 
fish, holding  on  to  it  with  his  teeth. 

Well,  the  fleet  was  then  off  Herschels,  on  the 
r  >rth  coast  of  Denmark,  working  amongst  the 
strong  tides  of  the  Skaggerack.  Our  deckie  had 
gone  below  to  help  the  cook  lad  with  the  dinner, 
as  it  was  such  a  nasty  choppy  sea,  and  was  just 
lifting  the  great  boiling  kettle  off  the  fire  when  a 
nasty  cross  sea  suddenly  flung  the  ship  to  one 


mm 


V 


To  a  HOSPITAL  97 

side,  and  even  Davie's  agility  did  not  save  him 
being  shot  to  leeward  with  all  the  boiling  stuff  on 
top  of  him.     Billy  was  adrift,  a  little  to  one  side 
of  the  fleet,  and  I  didn't  find  him  till  next  day. 
Meanwhile  I  couldn't  get  the  clothes  off  poor 
Davie :  they  all  seemed  glued  to  him ;   all  we 
could  think  of  was  to  lay  him  on  our  hard  wood 
locker,  and  keep  him  well  soaked  in  cold  water. 
He  tried  to  make  out  it  didn't  pain  him  much, 
but  every  now  and  again  the  moving  wrung  a 
groan  from  him.     It  was  another  of  those  cases 
that  was  "  too  much  "  for  Billy.     All  he  could  do 
was  to  get  the  poor  fellow's  clothing  off,  and  give 
him  something  to  ease  the  pain.     He  was  afraid 
to  do  too  much. 

"  You  go  straight  for  Grimsby,  Bill,"  he  said  to 
me.  "It's  a  fine  fair  wind,  and  ycui'll  Ukely 
enough  be  home  in  forty-eight  hours.'^ 

The  sky  looked  like  continued  westerly 
weather,  so  we  left  the  fleet  at  once.  Next  morn- 
ing, however,  it  fell  stark  calm,  and  so  it  stayed 
for  nearly  three  days,  with  not  a  sail  in  sight,— 
just  blistering  hot  calm  days,  and  no  chance' of 
getting  anywhere.  All  the  time  poor  Davie  lay 
on  the  locker,  wandering  in  his  mind,  and  shout- 
ing about  all  sorts  of  strange  things  he  thought  he 


mamemmmm 


I 

it 

li 


!| 


98 


The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 


saw.  At  last  when  the  wind  did  get  up,  it  was 
all  ahead,  and  so  I  held  on  and  on,  close  hauled, 
with  our  head  to  the  south'ard,  till  I  sighted 
Heligoland,  where  I  ran  in  and  got  a  doctor  to 
come  off.  He  had  Davie  sent  ashore,  and  they 
looked  after  him  right  well.  He  was  saved  by 
the  skin  of  his  teeth,  but  the  terrible  scarring 
seemed  to  take  all  his  old  suppleness  out  of  him, 
and  he  was  never  the  same  lad  again. 

So  we  were  often  hoping  and  praying  a  doctor 
would  come  out  to  each  fleet,  and  have  a  little 
hospital  aboard  the  mission-ship, — though  we  all 
thought  a  single  week  out  here  would  capsize 
any  doctoi  alive. 


'  •!!  I 


f 


w 


s 

I- 


XIII 
A  GREAT  SURGEON  COMES 

ONE    morning    when    we    boarded   the 
cutter  from  London,  we  found  a  visitor 
there  from  the  Council  of  the  Mission. 
It  was  a  doctor,  come  out  to  see  if  a  hospital  ship 
and  a  doctor  with  the  fleets  was  a  possibility. 
He  at  once  proved  himself  to  be  a  splendid  man. 
None  of  your  dandies,  always  lying  about  and 
wanting  things  done  for  them,  making  you  half 
afraid  they'd  drop  to  pieces  or  overboard  when 
you  weren't  looking.     No,_he  was  every  inch  a 
sailor  born,  never  seasick,  and  able  to  be  about  in 
all  weathers,  blow  high,  blow  low.     I've  seen 
him  in  the  small  boats  when  they  were  boarding 
fish,  and  on  the  carrier's  bridge,  when  the  seas 
were  con.ing  over  both  to  leeward  and  to  wind- 
'ard,  and  the  men  and  fish  boxes  being  washed 
about  in  the  scuppers  like  a  lot  of  ninepins. 

He  never  missed  a  haul  without  turning  out 
and  giving  a  hand,  the  whole  time  he  was  out, 
and  helped  to  paw  the  net  like  a  new  deck  hand.' 
He    had    the  right  stuff  in   him.     Everybody 

99 


HI 


mm 


r.l 


I 


100  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

knows  his  name  now,  because  all  England — yes, 
and  the  whole  world — rang  with  it  not  long  ago, 
when  he  saved  the  King's  life.  For  Frederick 
Treves — Sir  Frederick,  as  he  is  called  now — was 
the  first  doctor  that  ever  came  out  to  the  fishermen 
in  the  North  Sea.  And  while  he  has  saved  the 
highest  in  the  land,  through  him  hundreds  of  the 
fishermen  also  have  been  saved  from  suffering 
and  loss  and  perhaps  death.  Who  shall  say 
which  he  will  one  day  look  back  on  as  the  better 
deed? 

As  soon  as  he  returned,  a  young  doctor  joined 
the  Ensign  for  the  whole  of  a  two  months'  cruise 
in  winter.  He  told  them  all  that  he  thoroughly 
enjoyed  it,  and  what  was  odd  to  us,  he  really 
seemed  to.  The  fleet  gave  him  a  great  ovation 
when  the  ensign's  time  was  up.  Every  vessel 
was  lighted  up  with  coloured  flares  on  deck  and 
aloft.  And  heaps  of  rockets  went  up  to  say 
good-bye.  After  that  a  hospital  was  fitted  up  for 
him  on  one  of  the  larger  mission-vessels,  and  from 
that  time  on,  the  largest  fleets  at  least  have  never 
been  without  a  doctor. 

In  1890  Her  Majesty  ordered  the  first  real 
hospital  ship  to  Osborne  in  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
where  she  graciously  inspected  it  herself,  and  by 


A  GREAT  SURGEON  COMES      loi 
the  request  of  the  mission  named  it  the  Queen 
Vtctona.     That  vessel  was  shortly  followed  by 
her  sister  ship,  the  Aldert,  and  that  by  others. 
Thus,  though   many  fish-eaters   never   thought 
about  there  being  fish-catchers  living  far  away  at 
sea.  the  Queen  herself  found  time  to  think  of  us 
among  the  countless  interests  of  her  vast  do- 
minions, and  all  her  own  family  cares  and  sor- 
rows,  and  "  God  save  and  bless  the  Queen  "  went 
up  from  the  heart  and  hps  of  many  a  deep-sea 
fisherman. 

Many  changes  have  taken  place  since  then 
and  many  of  the  old  abuses  have  been  remedied. 
Regulations  have  been  made  that  have  greatly 
reduced   the  loss   of   life   while  boarding  fish. 
Masters  and  mates  are  obliged  to  hold  certificates 
of  competence.     There  is  no  longer  room  for 
drunken   skippers.    Apprentices   nowadays   are 
not  cruelly  treated  or  thrown  into  prison.     By 
means  of  the  enormous  amount  of  reading  matter 
distributed  every  year,  the  men's  higher  faculties 
have  been  stimulated,  and  their  lower  passions 
brought  under  better  control.     Moreover,  all  the 
lads  are  sent  to  school  and  taught  to  read  and 
write,  and  a  better-educated,  more  self-respecting 
set  of  men  has  grown  up. 


.     I 


If? 


102  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

One    more    greatly  needed   addition  to  the 
mission  work  came  later.     Ladies  all  over  the 
land  ceased  to  be  content  to  help  only  by  knit- 
ting woollen    articles    such    as    the    fishermen 
needed,  but  were  often  unable  to  buy.     These  of 
course  are  an  immense  boon  in  winter,  and  as 
they  wear  out  ver>  quickly  are  one  of  the  most 
expensive   parts   of  a   fisherman's   outfit.     Sea- 
boot  stockings,  mufflers,  mittens  and  even  guern- 
seys are  sold  now  at  nominal  prices  on  the  mis- 
sion-ships.    One  of  the  most  painful  and  other- 
wise   almost    inevitable    injuries    are    rendered 
largely  a  thing  of  the  past.     I  refer  to  sea-water 
boils,  and  deep  cracks  in  the  fishermen's  hands 
and  wrists   caused   by  the  chafing  of  the  oily 
frocks.     These  admit  the  dirty  salt  water  and  fish 
cleansings,  and  when  the  men  are  asleep  the 
tissues  set  something  like  cement,  and  it  takes 
an  hour  or  so  of  exquisite  agony  to  work  them 
loose  again.     Many  a  man  has  lived  to  bless  the 
knitters  of  the  mittens  that  mean  so  much  to 
them. 

But,  as  I  say,  the  ladies  ceased  to  be  satisfied 
with  this.  Finding  what  a  lot  of  orphans  and 
friendless  boys  there  were,  and  how  many  of 
them  were   from  the  workhouses,  reformatories 


A  GREAT  SURGEON  COMES      103 

and  industrial  homes,  they  set  to  work  to  form  a 
letter-writing  association.    The  movement  started 
when  one  of  the  judges  of  the  London  courts  was 
off  to  visit  the  fleets.     He  noticed  how  very  eager 
the  men  were,  not  only  for  news,  but  for  letters 
and  how  few  ever  got  any.     So  much  so,  that 
when  sometimes  a  disappointed  man  had  searched 
through  the  box  and  found  none  of  his  own,  he 
was  tempted  to  take  some  one  else's,  as  bet- 
ter than  none.     From  one  lady  writing  to  one 
friendless  lad,  an  association  some  two  thousand 
strong  has  grown  up,  and  many  and  many  a 
yorng   fellow,  who   only  needed  the  touch  of 
personal  sympathy  that  has  often  come  in  this 
strange  and  unpromising  way,  has  been  brought 
to  serv:  the  Master,  and  to  cast  in  his  lot  with 
Christian   men.     The  sense  of  having  a  true, 
though  unseen  friend  ashore,  makes  it  easier  to 
realize  the  unseen   presence  of  another  and  a 
greater  Friend. 


HIHibAfi 


XIV 


■I':| 


u 


1  i 


LOOKING  OUT  for  The  MEN  ASHORE 

ONE  loophole  still  remained  to  be  filled. 
Men  who  had  come  under  the  influence 
of  the  mission-vessels,  found  a  terrible 
void  when  they  came  home  from  sea.  I  suppose 
there  must  be  something  queer  about  us  risher- 
men  when  on  the  land.  We  are  a  bit  clannish  and 
don't  care  to  mix  with  landsmen  that  we  don't 
know,  so  often  enough  a  man  ashore  is  like  a 
codfish  out  of  water.  As  the  dangers  ashore 
were  ten  times  as  many  as  those  afloat,  now  that 
the  grog-vessels  were  gone,  not  a  few  good  men  fell 
back  when  at  home.  One  reason  was  that  a  young 
fellow's  pockets  were  then  full  of  money,  which 
at  sea  he  couldn't  spend.  There  were  many  uis- 
tressing  cases,  when  fathers  were  victimized  by 
the  crimps,  the  land-sharks  and  the  saloon- 
keepers that  abounded  in  the  fishermen's  quar- 
ters. They  paraded  their  flaring  attractions  on 
every  side,  directly  a  boat's  crew  landed.  Some 
of  their  efforts  were  thoroughly  organized.    The 

104 


LOOKING  OUT/tn-  Th,  MEN  ASHORE  105 

names  of  the  crews  of  each  of  the  vessels  were 
kept  registered,  and  the  time  for  them  to  be  at 
home  as  carefully  noted  as  by  their  wives  and 
friends.  Many  a  man  was  met  at  the  dock  side, 
on  landing,  and  never  allowed  to  see  his  home  till 
he  had  been  robbed  of  every  penny  of  his  pay. 
Sometimes  he  never  saw  it  at  all,  being  carried 
aboard  his  vessel  drunk  and  sent  to  sea  again,  his 
mate  having  looked  after  the  rcvictualling  of  his 
ship. 

I  remember  passing  a  saloon-door  on  the  main 
street  one  dark  and  rainy  winter  night.  Just  as 
the  light  from  the  window  fell  on  me,  a  tall, 
gaunt  woman,  who  in  the  early  days  of  her 
married  life  had  lived  in  a  comfortable  little  home 
next  to  my  own,  touched  me  on  the  shoulder. 

"  Bill,"  she  said,  '<  the  Bonnie  Lass  is  in,  isn't 
she  ?  " 

"  You,  Jennie  !  "  I  said,  quite  startled.  "  Yes, 
lass,  she  came  in  this  morning.  What  are  you 
doing  here  this  dreadful  night,  and  you  only  half 
clad  ?  " 

"  I'm  looking  for  Joe.  You  haven't  seen  him, 
have  you  ?  " 

"  No,  Jennie,  I  can't  say  I  have.  Hasn't  he 
been  home  yet  ?  " 


V 


!f 


M4 


ii 


i 


[i  t     i 


I06  7*/  HJRf'ESr  ef  The  SEA 

"  They've  got  him  into  one  of  these  hells,"  she 
sobbed.  "  You'll  help  me,  for  old  times'  sake, 
won't  you,  Bill  ?  " 

"  Help  you,  Jennie  ?— of  course  I  will.  You 
just  run  home ;  I'll  find  Joe." 

"  No,  no,"  she  wailed  ;  "  I'll  come  too." 

The  third  saloon  I  entered,  there  sat  Joe,  half- 
dazed,  with  five  or  six  of  those  infernal  thieves 
plying  him  with  liquor.  They  hadn't  got  his 
money  out  of  him  yet. 

"  Come  on,  Joe,"  I  said ;  "your  wife  wants  you." 

He  looked  at  me  in  a  sheepish  way,  as  if  he 
couldn't  see  who  I  was.  "Come,  Joe,"  I  re- 
peated— "  come  along  with  me.  I'll  see  you 
home." 

"  Let  the  man  alone,"  shouted  one  of  the 
scoundrels,  several  others  backu.j  him  up. 
"  What  business  is  it  of  yours,  if  the  man  wants 
a  drink  after  a  voyage  ?  " 

"  Step  over  here,  and  I'll  tell  you  what  business 
it  is  of  mine,"  I  replied.  Thank  God,  a  man 
isn't  a  deep-sea  fisherman  all  his  life,  to  fear  half 
a  dozen  saloon  bullies,  so  long  as  he  has  his 
senses.  The  man  made  a  step  my  way, — (some- 
times I'm  sorry  for  what  I  did,  but  the  devilry  of 
the  whole  business   made  me  mad),  but  before 


,;t  i 


if 


i 


LOOKING  OUT  for  Iht  MEN  ASHORE  107 

he  had  time  to  take  another,  I  had  him  at  arm's 
length  over  my  heud.  He  only  felt  like  a  heavy 
fish-box.  The  next  moment  I  hove  him  head 
first  among  his  pals,  as  if  it  was  over  the  cutter's 
rails.  He  knocked  over  one  man  as  he  went, 
and  lit  on  his  head,  where  he  lay  without  moving 
a  finger.  No  one  said  a  word.  Perhaps  it  was 
as  well  they  didn't;  some  one  would  have  been 
killed  if  they  had. 

So  I  marched  up  to  Joe,  took  him  by  the  arm 
and  led  him  to  the  door  in  a  silence  like  the 
grave.  No  one  moved  to  see  even  if  I  had 
killed  my  man.  All  I  ever  heard  of  him  after 
was  that  they  took  him  to  a  hospital  and  said  he 
had  fallen  down-stairs.  It  doesn't  pay  that  kind 
of  gentry  to  go  to  the  courts  if  they  can  help  it. 
Once  outside,  the  cold  air  and  rain  sobered  Joe  a 
bit. 

"All  right.  Bill,"  he  said, «' let  go.  I'll  go 
home." 

Like  a  fool,  I  did  so.  Suddenly  he  caught 
sight  of  poor  shivering  Jennie,  and  before  I 
could  stop  him,  he  had  rushed  at  her,  hit  her  fair 
between  the  eyes,  and  sent  her  flying  into  the 
mud  and  darkness.  Then  jerking  his  hand  from 
his  trousers  pocket,  he  hurled  a  handful  of  gold 


.■    <• 


t 

J 


M 


io8  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

at  her  with  an  oath.    The  man  was  mad  with  the 
poison  he  had  been  drinking. 

The   end   of  poor  Joe  doesn't   concern  this 
narrative :  suffice  it  to  say  that  some  of  us  saw 
him  safely  through  this  time  at  home.     But  such 
cases  were  all  too  frequent,  and  the  mission  was 
at  length  forced  to  take  up  work  ashore,  in  order 
to  supplement  the  work  of  the  ships  at  sea.     Now 
there  are  fine  institutes  for  deep-sea  fishermen 
only,  at  all  their  chief  ports.     Everything  is  done 
to  make  them  at  home.     There  they  can  find 
beds,   food,   lockers    to   leave  their  clothes   in, 
games,  clubs,  savings-banks— everything.     Each 
is  managed  by  a  fisherman  who  has  been  well 
known  to  the  men  at  sea  as  a  first-class  cook,  and 
a  cheerful,  clean-living.  Christian  man,  and  one 
who  loves  to  yarn  about  the  fish  as  much  as  the 
fishermen  do  themselves.    Thus  quite  a  number 
of  the  young  fellows  lodge  always  at  these  places, 
and  as  they  pay  for  all  they  get,  they  need  feel 
no   less   pride   in   spending  money  there   than 
many  a  poor  fool  does  in  standing  treat  in  those 
dens  of  iniquity  they  used  to  be  driven  to.     In 
fact,  these   institutes   are  run  on  common-sense 
principles,  and  are  almost  entirely  seK  supporting 
after  once  they  get  under  way. 


LOOKING  OUT  for  The  MEN  ASHORE  109 

Here  again  the  loving  self-sar'-ifice  of  ladies 
has  been  of  untold  value.     More  than  one  has 
freely  given  her  life  to  the  service  of  the  fisher- 
men, and  is  '■eaping  the  reward  of  as  sincere  a 
love  anc"    levouon  -i?.  a  warm-hearted,  generous 
lot  of  mm  ( (orgive  m.  ,  reader,  if  I  seem  egotistic) 
are   capa:  •  \    )f   yiving.     May  God   abundantly 
bless  them,  say  I,  for  all  their  devotion.    One  of 
the  direct  results  of  this  work  has  been  the  shut- 
ting up  of  numbers  of  these  hells,  for  the  best  of 
all  reasons — the   want  of  custom.     A   United 
Fishermen's  Christian  Association  has  done  ad- 
mirable work,  establishing,  among  other  things, 
homes  for  aged  fishermen,  unfit  to  cope  longer 
with  the  vicissitudes  of  the  only  calling  they  are 
fitted   for.     One  can't   fancy  an   old   fisherman 
driving  one's  carriage,  and  trying  to  tack  in  a 
crowded  street,  or  exploiting  a  knowledge  of  sea- 
weeds and  shell-fish  in  one's  flower  garden.     His 
chances  of  saving  for  an  old  age  have  not  been 
increased  by  an  early  marriage ;  though  that  was 
almost  essential,  if  there  was  to  be  one  spot  on 
God's  earth  that  he  could  call  home  when  he  re- 
turned from  the  hardship,  peril  and  monotony  of 
his    long    banishments    from    his    native  land. 
Better  far  for  a  fisherman  who  has  "  passed  his 


^ 


Hf^ 


II-' 


h 


lid 


1 10  The  HARVEST  of  The  S£J 

day,"  to  join  the  great  majority  of  the  comrades 
of  his  younger  days,  sleeping  their  last  peaceful 
sleep  beneath  the  surface  of  the  boundless  deep, 
than  to  suffer  the  miseries  of  a  poverty-stricken 
and  neglected  old  age.  For  to  the  aged  deep- 
sea  fisherman  a  grateful  country  awards  only  the 
stigma  of  the  poorhouse,  and  the  uniform  that 
brands  him  as  a  pauper. 

These  old  folks'  homes,  though,  alas !  all  too 
few,  are  at  least  run  on  the  right  lines.  Each 
inmate  has  his  own  allowance,  and  spends  his 
money  as  he  likes  best  within  the  most  liberal 
limits.  And  in  front  of  each  is  a  small  plot  of 
grass  or  cabbages  with  the  traditional  tarry  paling 
at  the  end,  giving  to  their  failing  eyesight  till  the 
very  last  a  vision  of  that  mighty  deep  on  which 
thv.y  have  lived  and  that  has  so  long  paid  tribute 
to  their  skill  and  courage. 

The  spiritual  work  of  the  mission  is  still  done 
by  the  fishermen  themselves,  aided  by  such 
volunteer  evangelists  as  choose  to  come  out,  and 
whose  very  presence,  for  no  pecuniary  return 
whatever,  is  itself  a  guarantee  that  they  believe 
they  have  a  message  worth  coming  out  to  de- 
liver.   Steam  has  replaced  sail  power  in  these 


[\l 


LOOKING  O UTfor  The  MEN  ASHORE  1 1 1 


55 

i 


1-. 


# 

H 


33 

i 


last  few  years,  and  the  mission  has  had  to  sell  its 
sailing  hospitals,  and  replace  them  with  the  ex- 
pens,  /e  modern  steam  fishing-boats  and  hospitals 
that  cost  no  less  than  sixty  thousand  dollars  a  piece 
— one  of  them  being  the  gift  of  a  zealous  mem- 
ber of  the  Council.  They  are  fitted  with  steam- 
heating,  electric  lights,  Roentgen  ray  apparatus, 
and  every  modern  requirement.  But  the  spirit- 
ual work,  as  I  have  said,  is  still  done  voluntarily. 
It  is  not  the  fishermen's  wealth  of  language,  nor 
their  doctrinal  orthodoxy,  nor  their  rhetorical 
skill,  that  makes  them  the  best  men  to  do  the 
work.  It  is  their  simple,  unwavering  faith,  their 
intense  earnestness  and  practicality  in  all  they 
do.  Their  lives,  too,  which  are  known  and  read 
by  all  their  congregation,  are  credentials  not  to 
be  gainsaid.  Hence  it  is  that  they  achieve  to- 
day results  more  nearly  apostolic  than  we  are 
accusto         -  >  see  in  our  churches  on  the  land. 


'^  I. 


J   ' 


I'll! 


I :[  Ui 

t- « 11 


XV 

OFF  7A^  COAST  of  LABRADOR 

ABOUT  this  time  one  of  the  Council  of 
the  Mission,  on  his  way  to  Canada, 
heard  a  good  deal  about  the  great  num- 
ber of  fishermen  catching  cod  and  halibut  and 
herring  and  seals  off  the  northwest  Atlantic 
coast.  He  returned  by  way  of  Newfoundland,  to 
find  out  more  about  them. 

All  their  ways  are  very  different  from  ours. 
They  do  not  send  their  fish  to  market  fresh,  but 
salt  it ;  nor  can  they  keep  the  sea  all  winter,  ow- 
ing to  the  ice  that  comes  down  from  the  Arctic 
regions.    A  number  of  the  men  go  to  the  great 
fishing  banks,  using  long  lines  as  has  been  so 
well  described  in  "Captains  Courageous."    As 
soon  as  the  break  up  of  the  ice  makes  it  possible, 
a  much  larger  number  start  out  in  almost  every 
sort  of  sailing  craft,  for  the  banks  and  shoals  off 
the  rocky  coast  of  Labrador.     They  return  in  the 
fall,  Avhen  the  ice  begins  to  form  again,  having 
been  away  from  May  to  October.     In  the  spring 

112 


;i< 


OFF  The  COAST  of  LABRADOR     113 

of  the  year,  from  every  nook  and  cove  small  ves- 
sels are  to  be  seen  working  their  way  out  among 
the  ice  pans,  carrying  down  not  only  the  men 
and  boys,  but  the  women  and  children  as  well, 
and  all  the  household  utensils,  furniture,  bedding, 
and  food  and  every  requisite  for  the  long  sum- 
mer's fishing.     AH  these  are  to  be  dropped  at 
some   natural   harbour  on   the  Labrador  coast, 
where  there  is  a  rude  tilt,  and  probably  a  small 
fishing  stage,  left  from  the  previous  year;  and 
here  one  crew,  or  it  may  be  a  dozen,  v/ill  form  a 
small  settlement  and  fish  from  that  place  in  boats 
which  they  leave  here  from  year  to  year.    A 
single  crev/  remains  on  the  schooner,  and  goes  on 
a  fishing  trip  further  north.     At  the  end  of  the 
voyage  with  all  the  fish,  split  and  salted,  stowed 
away  in  the  hold,  this  solitary  crew  returns  to  the 
station.     The  men  that  have  remained  are  called 
"  stationers  " ;  the  others  are  green-fish  catchers. 

The  crews  are  formed  by  a  skipper  shipping  a 
number  of  men  to  go  with  him,  usually  his  sons 
or  other  relations.  An  agreement  is  made  with 
some  merchant  to  give  them  what  they  need  to 
fit  out  the  vessel  and  all  hands  for  the  venture. 
There  are  no  apprentices  among  them.  The 
men  often  build  their  own  schooners,  for  they 


I 

i 


V  '1' 

I  !   , 


i1 


ill 


114  T*^  HARyESr  of  The  SEA 

are  obliged  to  be  very  handy  men ;  and  any  one 
can  go  out  and  cut  down  whatever  timber  he 
wants  for  fishery  purposes.  In  return  for  the 
outfit,  the  skipper  sells— or,  as  they  say,  "  turns 
in  "—all  the  fish  he  catches  to  "his  merchant." 
He  is  then  given  his  account.  If  anything  is  due 
to  him,  it  must  by  law  be  paid  in  cash.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact  it  very  seldom  is.  The  skipper 
"  takes  up  "  in  the  merchant's  store  what  he  needs 
for  the  winter,  and  to  get  his  gear  in  order  again 
for  the  next  summer.  A  man  who  thus  takes 
out  a  supply  is  called  a  "  planter." 

The  troubles   of  this   system   are  very   real. 
The  merchant  has  to  run  a  great  risk.     He  lets 
out,  in  the  form  of  goods,  large  sums  of  money, 
which  he  has  to  borrow  from  the  bank.     If  the 
fishing  is  bad,  he  may  never  be  paid  at  all,  be- 
cause   the    planters    cannot    meet  their  debts. 
Again,  if  they  can  just  pay,  still  the  merchant 
is   expected  to  make  another  advance  for  the 
winter.     If  the  summer  fishing  is  very  good,  the 
price  of  fish  falls,  and  things  are  then  perhaps 
worse  than  ever,  the  fish  not  paying  the  cost  of 
storing  and  making  and  sending  to  market.     Or, 
again,  a  fisherman  may  be  tempted  to  sell  his  fish 
elsewhere,  when  he  sees  that  he  will  have  noth- 


OFF  The  COAST  of  LABRADOR    115 

ing  coming  to  him  after  the  setthng,  and  fears 
that  no  advances  will  be  made  to  him  for  his 
family  for  the  winter.     In  these  ways  many  of 
the   merchants  have  been  ruined.     And  a  few 
years  ago  the  banks  that  they  owed  their  own 
advances  to,  went  bankrupt  as  a  result.    Thus 
the  supplying  merchants  have  to  demand  a  great 
margin  of  profit  on  the  goods  they  supply,  if 
they  are  to  make  ends  meet.     While  this  favours 
the  man  who  does  not  pay,  it  handicaps  very 
seriously  the  man  who  does.     The  whole  «'  truck 
system,"  as  it  is  called,  is  a  ruinous  one  in  every 
way.     It  has  been  exceedingly  difficult  for  the 
country  to  thro^v  it  off,  as  the  long  winter  of 
more  or  less  enforced  idleness  has  kept  the  fish- 
ermen continually  in  debt.     Of  late  years,  how- 
ever, the  opening  of  mines,  and  the  starting  of 
pulp  and  lumber  mills  and  other  industries,  have 
been  slowly  enabling  a  number  of  the  fishermen 
to  get  free.     To  be  born  in  debt,  to  live  in  debt, 
and  to  die  in  debt,  has  been  the  lot  of  many  a 
Newfoundland  fisherman.     On  the  other  hand, 
these  men  have  advantages  denied  their  fellows 
in  the  old  country.     They  can  build  and  own 
their  own  houses,  they  can  get  all  the  fire-wood 
they  need,  and  they  have  no  rates  to  pay,  as  we 


^^smamaammtrnm 


kr 


u6  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

have.  They  have  long  periods  when  they  are 
entirely  their  own  masters,  when  they  ca.i  do 
just  as  they  like,  and  they  have  much  more  time 
to  enjoy  life  than  we  have,  especially  since  the 
steam  trawling  began.  Indeed,  they  can  enjoy 
many  pleasures  that  are  reserved  for  the  rich  in 
our  country. 

The  following  story  of  a  Labrador  fisherman's 
life  explains  what  their  lot  is,  better  than  I  could 
do  it  in  any  other  way. 


i 


■  if 


i 

I 


i.'  ^ 


XVI 

The    LABRADORMAN'S    STORY 

AS  long  as  I  can  remember,  I  have  been 
going  every  year  to  the  Labrador  fishery, 
and  iince  I  have  been  strong  enough,' 
every  winter  to  the  ice.  hunting  seals.     Indeed,  I 
was  born  in  the  cabin  of  a  fishing-schooner,  'as 
she  lay  in  the  ice  off  the  coast,  on  her  way  to  the 
summer  f  shery.     My  grandfather  came  out  from 
Dorsetshire  in  England,  with  one  of  the  great 
Jersey  fishing  firms,  and  my  father  also  followed 
the  fishery  till  he  was  lost  in  his  own  vessel  with 
all  hands,  coming  from  St.  Johns  late  one  fall. 
A  heavy  gale  blew  the  schooner  off  the  coast, 
and  she  was  no  doubt  lost  through  her  running 
ngging  getting  coated  with  ice,  and  so  becoming 
unmanageable. 

There  were  six  of  us  boys,  until  two  were  lost 
With  my  father;  and  then  I  was  left  the  second 
oldest,  so  that  the  care  of  the  family  developed 
partly  on  me  at  the  age  of  fifteen.  The  insurance 
on  the  schooner,  and  the  nets  and  gear  my  father 


"9^ 


\' 


ui"^ 


I .  > 


II'       V 

I 
1 


ii8  Tht  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

left,  enabled  us  to  continue  going  to  Labrador  as 
usual.  The  neighbours,  also,  lent  us  every  pos- 
sible help,  as  the  custom  is  amongst  Newfound- 
landers. 

Our  hardest  work  in  winter  was  hauling  the 
fire-wood.  For  this  we  had  six  fine  dogs.  These 
were  my  special  care.  Making  their  harness  and 
the  komatik,  or  sleigh,  and  feeding  the  dogs  and 
driving  them  to  and  fro  from  the  woods,  was 
always  more  play  than  work  to  me.  Still,  when 
you  had  been  at  it  from  daylight  to  dark,  cutting 
one  day  and  hauling  the  next,  you  were  always 
able  to  do  your  share  of  sleeping.  A  boy  has  to 
learn  to  handle  an  axe  as  soon  as  he  can  walk 
out  here,  and  some  say  we  are  born  with  netting 
needles  in  our  hands.  "  Netting  "  used  to  occupy 
all  our  spare  moments,  and  it  was  little  time  for 
school  I  ever  had,  as  both  salmon  and  cod  twine 
had  to  be  got  ready. 

Whenever  I  could  get  half  a  chance  I  was 
away  gunning.  In  the  fall  we  used  to  shoot 
ducks  from  our  punt.  We  started  out  before 
daylight  and  rowed  out  to  the  head-of-land. 
Just  at  dawn  the  birds  come  flying  along,  and 
many  a  morning  I  have  bagged  a  dozen  by 
breakfast-time.    Then  seldom  a  fall  went  by  that 


M  i 


til 

•  I 


m 


m 


The  LABRADORMAN'S  STORY    119 

we  did  not  get  a  few  deer.     For  though  we  only 
used  a  large  muzzle-loading  shotgun,  she  used  to 
carry  a  ball  well ;  and  deer  were  plentiful  at  that 
time.     All   that  we  shot  was   frozen  down   in 
barrels  with  snow,  and  thus  made  to  keep  all 
winter.     What  pride  I  used  to  take  in  seeing  our 
wood-pile  grow  under  my  hand, — and  in  seeing 
my  mother's   pleasure  when  we  brought  home 
game  for  the  larder !     Then  we  had  always  a  few 
sheep  to  feed  and  tend.     As  soon  as  we  returned 
from  the  fishery  in  Labrador,  we  had  to  go  up  in 
the  bay  and  cut  wild  hay  for  them.     This  we 
heaped  up  and  covered  with  boughs  till  we  were 
ready  to  haul  it  home  in  winter.    Then  we  built 
some  sort  of  a  L-oat  almost  every  winter,  and  for 
this  we  had  to  fell  the  timber  and  saw  the  planks 
with  a  large  pit-saw.     We  had  also  the  rabbit- 
slips  to  tend,  and  every  winter  there  were  the  fox- 
traps  to  tail  and  watch,— that  is,  whenever  we 
could  find  time  to  work  them. 

By  the  end  of  February  we  had  to  be  fitting 
out,  if  we  were  going  to  the  ice  after  seals.  In 
old  times  we  always  went  in  the  schooners. 
These  had  to  be  cut  out  from  the  winter  ice, 
rigged  and  victualled,  and  every  man  had  to  get 
ready  his    gaff,  knife,  steel    and  hauling-rope. 


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I!  • 

■  ( i 


120  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

Nowadays  it  is  all  done  in  the  great  sealing 
steamers,  each  carrying  from  two  to  three  hun- 
dred men.  So  now  we  have  to  walk,  or  work 
our  way,  as  best  we  can,  to  the  nearest  place  we 
can  get  a  chance  to  ship.  That  used  to  be,  gen- 
erally, at  St.  Johns,  and  this  involved  a  long 
journey,  often  two  or  three  weeks  being  neces- 
sary, as  there  was  scarcely  any  railway  till  within 
the  last  few  years. 

Though  we  made  very  little  by  it,  somehow  we 
all  looked  forward  to  the  "  ice-hunting,"  as  we 
called  it.  For  all  of  us,  but  especially  we  younger 
fellows,  enjoyed  the  excitement  and  even  the 
risks.  Indeed,  laws  had  to  be  passed  to  prevent 
the  schooners  from  sailing  before  it  was  neces- 
sary, as  our  men  -lo  not  know  what  fear  is  when 
"  swiles  are  about."  So  vessels  must  now  report 
on  the  day  fixed  by  law,  to  show  that  they  have 
not  taken  an  unfair  advantage  by  leaving  too 
early.  It  is  said  that  on  a  certain  part  of  our 
coast  where  wrecks  were  common,  distress  guns 
were  heard  once  during  a  Sunday  morning  ser- 
mon. There  was  a  momentary  silence,  till  the 
parson  could  assure  himself  that  he  was  not  mis- 
taken. Then,  seeing  some  of  the  congregation 
reaching  for  their  hats,  he  ordered  the  sexton  to 


i;  11 


The  LABRADORMAN'S  STORY    121 

hut  the  door  till  the  sermon  was  over.     Then  he 

aid  to  the  congregation,  "  No,  no,  boys ;  let's 

11  start  fair."     Hastily  winding  up  the  service, 

he  raced  off  at  the  head  of  the  congregation.     So 

it  is  every  year  with  the  seal  fishery.     We  are  all 

keen   to  get  there,  but  we  all   have  to  "  start 

fair."    So  winter  is  a  busy  time  with  us  after  all, 

and  in  spite  of  the  cold  we  like  it  best  of  all  the' 

seasons. 

After  the  sealety,  however,  come?  the  reaUy 
busy  time.     The  schooner  has  to  be  scraped  and 
caulked  over  and   painted,  and  the  nets  over- 
hauled and  put  on  board.     All  the  things  for  the 
summer-house  in  Labrador  have  to  be  stowed, 
and   finally  the  people  shipped  and   made   as' 
comfortable  as  possible.     Generally  we  have  to 
go  all  the  way  to  St.  Johns  first,  for  supplies  of 
food.   But  usually  we  are  away,  at  the  very  latest, 
by  early  June.     Often  enough  the  voyage  will 
run  into  a  whole  fortnight  before  we  reach  our 
harbour,  away  down  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  though 
we  always  race  as  hard  as  we  can,  to  get  a  good 
place  to  put  our  trap  net  down.     This  is  a  much 
more  important  point  than  you  would  suppose, 
for  we   cannot  take   our   nets  to  the  fish,  and 
therefore  have  to  place  them  where  the  fish  are 


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122  n*  HARFEST  of  The  SEA 

sure  to  pass.  So  great  is  the  excitement,  that 
the  Government  has  had  to  pass  a  law  forbidding 
any  mark  to  be  put  out  claiming  a  "  trap  berth," 
as  it  is  called,  before  a  certain  day  and  hour. 
For  there  is  a  temptation  to  run  great  risks  in 
forcing  the  small  schooners  through  the  ice  be- 
fore it  is  safe.  Even  now,  men  will  stay  out  on 
the  best  points  till  midnight,  waiting  till  the  hour 
has  struck,  to  put  out  their  mark,  claiming  a 
berth  for  the  year. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  season  we  fish  for 
salmon,  setting  long  nets  from  the  heads,  with  a 
kind  of  "  pound "  at  the  end.  In  these  the 
salmon  mesh.  When  caught,  they  are  split 
down  the  back,  salted,  and  stowed  in  large 
barrels  called  tierces,  and  sent  to  the  United 
States  to  be  washed  and  smoked,  and  sold  as 
smoked  salmon.  Soon  however  the  salmon  have 
passed  into  the  rivers,  and  then  there  arrive  great 
shoals  of  small  fish,  the  size  of  sardines.  These 
come  in  such  immense  quantities  that  the  water 
is  black  with  them,  and  they  herald  the  arrival 
of  the  "  fish."  (Salmon  is  salmon  ;  but  when  we 
speak  of  cod,  we  call  it  simply  "  fish.")  These 
small  fish  are  called  capelin,  and  the  cod  pursue 
them  till  they  run  high  and  dry  on  the  shore. 


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The  LABRADORMAN'S  STORY     123 

Every  year  we  see  great  wallowing  masses  of  fish 
following  the  capelin  in.  This  is  called  the 
"  capelin  school,"  and  when  it  comes  we  expect 
to  reap  our  harvest. 

It  is  a  glorious  sight  to  see,  this  arrival  of  the 
fish.  Overhead  the  marvellous  transparent  sky ; 
below,  the  glassy  surface  of  the  dark  blue  ocean  ; 
here  and  there  the  fantastic  shapes  of  great 
mountains  of  ice,  dazzling  the  eye  with  a  white- 
ness which  far  exceeds  that  of  the  whitest  marble 
Behind  an  ihe  mighty  cliffs,  their  jagged  faces 
telling  the  story  of  their  endless  battles  at  first 
with  fire,  and  then  with  frost  and  furious  seas. 
Along  the  shores  is  the  great  host  of  eager  fish- 
ermen. 

Suddenly  the  water  is  alive.  Everywhere  the 
dense  masses  are  "  breaching  "  the  surface,  which 
a  moment  ago  was  so  still  and  deathlike.  Birds 
flying  and  diving  follow  in  their  wake,  with  seals 
and  porpoises,  sharks  and  whales,  and  countless 
hosts  of  lean  und  hungry  cod.  Ashore  even,  the 
wild  animals  are  expecting  them,  and  dogs,  and 
bears,  otters  and  minks,  are  hurrying  to  the  land- 
wash  to  share  in  the  great  annual  feast,  that 
comes,  like  the  rain,  to  good  and  bad  alike.  Our 
net  is  a  great  room  of  twine,  anchored  down  on 


I 


124  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

the  bottom  by  the  four  corners.  There  is  also  a 
long  straight  net  running  to  the  rocks.  This  is 
called  the  "  leader,"  because  as  the  shoals  of  cod 
swim  along  past  the  rocks,  it  leads  them  right 
into  the  door.  The  net  is  so  shaped,  that  once  in- 
side, they  iiover  get  back  to  the  entrance,  but  go 
on  swimming  round  and  round.  The  fishermen 
keep  a  watch  on  the  shore,  and  are  soon  off  in 
the  large  trap-boat.  Then  they  look  down  with 
a  water  telescope,  and  if  they  see  any  fish  they 
pull  up  the  door  and  empty  the  trap.  It  is  in 
this  way  we  catch  the  enormous  number  of  fish 
necessary  to  make  a  living.  The  fish  when  dried 
and  "  tallied  in  "  to  the  merchant  on  our  return 
are  sent  to  the  Mediterranean  and  Brazilian  mar- 
kets, and  to  the  West  Indies. 

We  have  other  methods  also  for  catching 
"  fish,"  for  we  use  nets  in  which  they  will  mesh, 
and  also  "  bultos,"  or  long  lines  fitted  with  thou- 
sands of  hooks.  On  a  fine  calm  day,  as  you 
haul  up  the  bulto  you  can  look  over  the  side  far 
down  into  the  deep  water,  and  see  great  white 
things  every  few  yards  down,  getting  smaller  and 
smaller  till  you  can  see  them  no  more.  They 
are  all  swirling  to  and  fro,  and  make  one  think 
of  Jacob's  ladder  with  the  angels  on  it,  though 


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THEY  ARE  REALLY  THE  GREAT  COD 


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THE  LABRADORMAN'S  STORY  125 

they  are  really  the  great  cod— which  are  only 
Uken  in  deep  water— coming  up  on  the  hooks. 

Having  landed  our  "  freighters,"  as  we  call 
tM^ry  one  we  carry  down  to  stations  in  Labrador, 
we  trim  the  ship  and  go  either  into  the  Straits 
of  Belle  Isle  or  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  or  else 
we  push  on  farther  north. 


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XVII 

The  LABRADOR  ESKIMO  and   The 
MOP  A  1^1  AN  MISSIONARIES 

THERE  are  a  number  of  fisherfolk,  who 
live  all  the  year  in  the  southern  and 
eastern  part  of  Labrador.  As  a  rule 
they  are  very  poor,  being  cut  off  from  every 
possible  way  of  helping  themselves  to  rise.  They 
are  descended  from  old  hunters  of  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company,  and  they  live  by  fishing  and  trap- 
ping, as  we  do.  We  call  them  "  Liveyeres,"  be- 
cause they  live  on  the  coast. 

Then  still  further  north  are  the  Eskimo — a 
queer  merry  little  brown  people,  with  jet-black 
hair,  which  they  cut  in  a  fringe  straight  across 
the  forehead.  They  are  almost  always  fat  and 
jolly,  though  we  cannot  understand  how  they 
manage  to  be  so,  seeing  the  way  they  live.  In 
winter  they  hunt  seal  and  bear  and  walrus  and 
narwhal,  living  in  houses  built  of  snow.  On 
the  edge  of  the  ice,  as  they  travel  about,  they 
make  everything  they  want  out  of  a  seal.  That 
is  one  reason  we  always  admire  them  so :  they 

126 


The  LABRADOR  ESKIMO         127 

seem  to  make  so  many  things  out  of  nothing. 
The  skin  makes  them  clothing,  and  tents,  and 
coverings  for  their  kayaks  or  canoes,  harness 
and  traces  for  their  dogs,  lines  for  their  har- 
poons, and  bladders  for  floats.  The  intestines 
blown  up  and  dried  like  sausage-covers  make 
jugs  for  oil,  and  flasks  for  powder  and  shot, 
which  they  can  buy  now  at  the  stores.  They 
also  sew  the  bowel  very  neatly  and  make  per- 
fectly water-proof  clothing  out  of  it ;  and  as  it 
is  half  transparent  they  make  the  window-glass 
for  their  houses  and  tents  of  it.  They  eat  the 
meat  and  the  blubber  or  fat,  which  they  also  use 
in  lamps,  carved  out  of  a  soft  soapstone  that  is 
found  on  the  coast.  They  make  the  wicks  out 
of  moss,  which  is  flat  and  close  from  havuig 
grown  in  the  narrow  fissures  between  the  rocks. 
The  hide  of  the  walrus  they  cut  up  for  rope,  in 
strips  fully  an  inch  thick,  and  as  strong  as  a  her/ ^ 
hawser.  This  has  lots  of  "  give "  in  it,  which 
adds  to  its  strength.  The  great  ivory  tusks  are 
used  to  weight  and  tip  their  harpoons.  Many  a 
stone  kettle  and  lamp  and  arrow-head  have  I 
picked  up  in  Labrador,  for  the  Eskimo  managed 
to  kill  all  they  needed  in  old  days  with  stone  im- 
plements.    They  make  queer  graves,  too.    There 


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128  The  HJRrEST  of  The  SEA 

is  no  earth  to  bury  their  dead  in,  so  they  just 
heap  up  stones  on  their  ends,  and  put  flat  ones 
on  the  top.  This  is  done  in  order  that  the  spirits 
may  look  out.  They  always  place  a  man's  pos- 
sessions on  the  ground  by  the  grave,  for  they 
think  that  everything  has  a  spirit,  even  a  stone 
knife.  The  grave  is  put  on  a  headland,  usually 
overlooking  the  sea  where  the  man  used  to  hunt. 
Thus,  when  his  spirit  wants  to  hunt,  it  will  find 
everything  ready. 

The  Eskimo  are  very  honest  and  seldom  if 
ever  steal :  indeed,  they  hold  most  things  almost 
in  common.     I  never  knew  one  to  let  another 
go  hungry,  even  if  it  took  the  very  last  bit  he 
had  to  feed  him.    When  we  are  "  away  down 
north  "  fishing,  these  little  fellows  love  to  come 
on  board.     They  never  seem  to  be  in  a  hurry, 
and  we  should  be  apt  to  say  they  are  idle ;  but 
they  say,  "  If  we  get  enough,  why  should  we 
worry  about  getting  more?"    When  they  want 
to  buy  anything  from  us  they  bring  us  the  seal- 
skin boots  that  they  make.    These  are  all  sewn 
most  beautifully  with  the  tendon  from  the  rein- 
deer's back,  so  that  they  are  perfectly  water-tight; 
and  they  are  so  soft  that  one's  feet  move  freely  in 


W^ 


The  LABRADOR  ESKIMO         129 

them.    This  makes  them  very  warm,  and  so  we 
value  them  for  the  ice  hunting.     The  Eskimo 
like  very  much  to  get  our  trap-boats,  for  wood 
is  very  scarce  with  them.     Last  summer  a  man 
called  Annanak,  came  round  Cape  Chidley  in  his 
oomiak,  or  woman-boat.     It  was  almost  square 
and    quite    flat-bottomed.     It    had  a  perfectly 
square  sail  of  sealskin  in  the  middle,  and  the 
man's  two  wives  were  rowing  with  two  large 
oars    made  from  pieces  of  drift-wood  he  had 
picked  up  in  Hudson's  Bay.     He  himself  did  the 
steering.    There  u  re  in  the  boat,  all  told,  no  less 
than  nineteen  people,  six  dogs,  md  about  a  ton 
of  seal  oil,  that  he  was  carrying  up  to  a  Hudson's 
Bay  Company's  post  to  sell.     Another  Eskimo 
bought  our  trap-boat  for  twenty-six  pairs  of  skin 
boots.     I  wish  every  one  felt  as  happy  and  as  rich 
as  he  did,  when  he  went  off,  the  owner  of  his  own 
wooden  boat. 

For  over  one  hundred  years  Moravian  mission- 
aries from  Germany  have  lived  in  Labrador 
among  the  Eskimo.  They  have  built  churches 
and  schools  for  them,  and  taught  them  to  read, 
write,  play  music  and  sing  beautifully.  They 
love  singing,  as  twtry  one  does  who  has  a  con- 


ill 

m 


130  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

tented  mind.  The  Moravians  are  a  trading  mis- 
sion, selling  the  Eskimo  what  they  need,  and 
receiving  in  return  their  fur  and  oil.  Of  late, 
also,  they  have  encouraged  the  Eskimo  to  catch 
"  fish."  An  Eskimo  man  thought  it  beneath  his 
dignity  to  do  any  such  work,  formerly.  The 
Moravians  live  all  their  lives  on  these  barren 
shores,  cut  off  from  all  the  world,  just  for  the 
sake  of  the  Eskimo.  There  is  no  chance  for 
their  children  to  get  on  in  Labrador,  and  this  is 
the  chief  sacrifice  the  "  Brethren,"  as  they  are 
called,  have  to  make.  For  when  one  of  their 
children  comes  to  be  seven  years  old,  they  have 
to  send  it  home  in  the  missionary  ship  Harmony, 
which  comes  once  a  year  to  bring  food  and  sup- 
plies, and  they  may  never  see  the  child  any 
more.  Such  is  the  danger  of  not  having  food 
in  this  ice-bound  country,  that  two  years'  sup- 
plies have  to  be  kept  on  hand,  ready  for  the  day 
when  perhaps  some  accident  may  happen  to  the 
Harmony,  and  she  may  not  arrive.  It  is  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-one  years  since  the  first  ship 
Harmony  sailed  for  Labrador.  She  has  had  to 
cross  the  wildest  part  of  the  wild  Atlantic  twice 
every  year  since,  contending  with  wintry  gales, 


f 


The  LABRADOR  ESKIMO  13, 
and  towering  icebergs,  and  the  densest  fogs  any. 
where  in  the  world.  Wars  with  other  nations 
have  raged,  and  countless  other  vessels  have  been 
seized  and  stripped  and  sunk;  but  all  these  years 
the  Harmony  has  ahvays  come  safely,  and  the 
humble  Brethren  in  Labrador  have  never  yet  had 
to  draw  on  their  reserve  stock  of  provisions. 


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^  I 


XVIII 
HOIV  IVE  Did  WITHOUT  a  DOCTOR 

THERE  are  perhaps  no  healthier  people 
anywhere,  than  are  we  fisherfolk.  And 
perhaps  there  is  no  healthier  place  than 
Labrador,  so  the  doctors  in  Newfoundland  often 
send  their  patients  to  Labrador  for  the  summer, 
where  the  bracing  air,  the  freedom  from  infectious 
germs  and  the  sea-life  make  new  men  of  worn- 
out  material.  Some  twenty  thousand  people  are 
spread  out  all  along  a  thousand  miles  of  coast 
for  about  five  months  of  the  year,  and  about 
three  thousand  stay  there  throughout  the  winter. 
Many  are  born,  live  and  die  there.  The  industry 
they  pursue  especially  exposes  them  to  accident, 
and  in  particular  to  cuts,  sea-boils  and  ulcers 
from  the  poisoned  water  round  their  stages,  where 
a  small  wound  or  even  scratch  often  leads  to 
abscess,  gangrene  and  loss  of  part  of  a  hand. 
Yet  no  doctor  ever  lived  in  Labrador,  and  the 
only  help  of  that  kind  ever  attainable  was  from 
the   doctor  on  the  small  mail-steamer,  which 

13a 


HOW  WE  Did  WIT  HO  UT  a  DOCl  OR    133 

makes  flying  visits  at  very  uncertain  periods 
about  nine  times  in  the  summer.  I  need  not 
say  how  much  unnecessary  suffering  had  to  be 
borne,  and  how  many  limbs  or  lives  lost  that 
might  have  been  saved. 

It  would  amuse  you,  if  I  were  to  write  you  a 
record  of  the  various  ways  we  used  to  treat  our 
ailments.     I   think  they  may  all   be  put  down 
under   the    heading  of  « faith   cures."     Certain 
people  were  supposed  to  be  able  to  charm  tooth- 
ache, and  all  inward  pains  arising  from  no  visible 
cause.     Many  is  the  time  I  have  been  "  charmed  " 
as  a  boy.     I  am  alive  and  strong  still,  thank  God, 
but  whether  it  was  the  charming  that  saved  me 
or  the  quantity  of  brimstone  that  mother  insisted 
on  my  swallowing,  I  do  not  know;  but  of  one 
thing  I  am  certain :  I  had  to  be  very  bad  indeed 
before  I  let  mother  guess  I  needed  medicine.     If 
a  man  was  badly  cut  and  there  was  no  way  to 
stop  the  bleeding,  we  filled  the  wound  with  cut 
tobacco,  and  if  that  didn't  stop  it,  with  dry  flour. 
1  have  picked  up  sacks  of  flour  from  a  wrecked 
vessel  that  have  floated  in  the  sea  for  over  a 
week,  and  the  water  has  only  soaked  through 
about  a  quarter  of  an  inch.     For  a  poultice  for 
swelhngs  every  one  used  the  "tansy"  plant  a 


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If  i 


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134  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

common  large  yellow  flower  with  green  leaves. 
I  can  smell  the  sickly  odour  of  it  now !  for  more 
than  a  haycock  of  it,  all  told,  has  been  plastered 
onto  my  own  sores,  at  times.  If  it  was  thought 
necessary  that  a  poultice  should  "  draw  well,"  it 
was  made  of  soap  and  molasses,  for  sugar  was  an 
article  we  seldom  saw.  As  this  was  applied  to 
ulcers  and  open  sores,  you  can  well  imagine  what 
it  looked  and  felt  like  in  a  day  or  two,  as  it  kept 
all  the  poisons  in.  But  it  was  said  to  be  so 
powerful  it  would  draw  your  head  to  your  heels, 
if  only  applied  in  the  right  place.  All  fevers  were 
put  down  to  "  taking  a  chill,"  and  the  remedy 
was  to  take  the  reverse.  That  meant  stewing  the 
sick  one  over  the  hot  stoves  we  use,  in  the  small 
and  crowded  kitchens,  and  keeping  out  every 
possible  whiff  of  fresh  air.  How  many  of  those 
I.  have  known,  that  have  died  of  consumption, 
have  been  thus  done  to  death  with  kindness,  I 
should  be  afraiJ  to  guess.  For  it  was  of  course 
thought  equally  impossible  to  expose  the  skin 
for  washing,  in  the  same  circumstances. 

Plasters  are  always  a  greatly-prized  remedy.  I 
have  known  a  man  to  wear  six  plasters  at  a  time, 
including  one  on  his  face — for  headache!  A 
plaster  may  be  made  of  anything  that  will  stick, 


1: 


now  IVE  Did  IVITHOUT a  DOCTOR   135 

and  must  be  left  on  till  it  falls  ofT.    The  best  of 
all  was  made  of  stuff  called  "  dragon's  blood  " : 
it  was    supposed    to    contain   great  virtue   for 
strengthening.    Such  were  many  of  our  resources 
in  sickness,   and  they  would  be  comical,  were 
they  not  often  so  tragical,  and  of  such  vital  im- 
portance to  us.    Thus,  on  one  occasion  diphtheria 
was  somehow  brought  to  us.    A  poor  fellow  near 
me  saw  all  his  three  children  taken  down  with  it. 
What  to  do  he  did  not  know;  nor  did  any  of  us 
know  what  was  the  matter.     We  knew  it  was 
"catching"  and  fatal,  for  many  had  died  of  it. 
This  man's  only  remedy  was  to  blister  the  throat 
outside,  which  he  did  by  tying  round  it  a  salt 
herring.     It  blistered  the  throat  all  right,  but  of 
course  did  not  save  the  boy.     As  soon  as  he 
found  his  second  boy  was  choking  and  could 
swallow  nothing,  the  poor   father  thought  he 
needed  something  to  <•  break  the  velum,"  so  he 
tried  greasing  the  inside  of  the  throat  with  the 
rounded  end  of  a  tallow  candle.    All  the  three 
chudren  died  the  same  day.     One  poor  father  on 
another  occasion  came  home  in  the  winter  to  his 
house,  where  he  had  left  his  wife  sick  in  bed,  and 
found  that  his  little  five-year-old  girl  had  toddled 
out  unobserved,  and  had  not  returned.    When 


i 


II  > 


I 


■I 


M 


136  Thi  HARrESr  of  The  SEA 

he  found  her,  her  legs  below  the  knees 'were 
badly  frost-burned.  They  turned  quite  black 
and  dead,  and  he  was  himself  obliged  to  cut  them 
both  off  with  the  only  instrument  he  had — his  axe. 
The  little  mail  steamer  used  to  take  on  board 
and  carry  home  to  Newfoundland  any  fisher- 
men supposed  to  be  dying.  No  special  pro- 
vision was  made  for  him  or  her  on  board,  and 
I  heard  the  captain  say  once  that  seventeen  he 
had  thus  carried  had  just  "  died  where  they  lay." 
It  often  meant  also  a  very  serious  loss  to  a 
humane  skipper,  for  if  one  of  his  hands  fell  sick 
on  the  passage  down,  he  was  always  in  a  great 
doubt  as  to  what  he  ought  to  do.  If  he  went  on 
it  meant  perhaps  suffering  and  death  to  the  man, 
and  if  he  went  back  it  meant  perhaps  poverty 
and  want  for  all  their  families  next  winter.  Then, 
too,  in  the  tiny  tilts  there  could  be  no  provision 
for  sick  women  and  children.  There  was  little 
enough  for  them  when  they  were  well.  Many 
of  the  green-fish  catchers  also  carried  gi  •  as 
extra  help,  for  their  labour  was  much  ch  »er 
than  a  man's.  If  they  were  overtaken  with  sick- 
ness in  these  small  and  crowded  cabins,  what 
comfort,  what  chance — nay,  what  decency, — 
could  there  be  for  them?    I  remember  well  a 


HOIV  iVE  Did  WITHOVT a  DOCTOR    137 

man  losing  one  of  his  boys  from  scarlet  fever 
in  the  cabin  of  his  small  schooner,  just  as  she 
reached  her  station  far  down  on  the  north  coast 
of  Labrador.  All  who  die  are  carried  home  in 
the  fall,  and  gruesome  as  it  may  seem,  the  child 
was  carried  back,  preserved  in  salt,  in  the  same 
vessel  with  a  number  of  healthy  people.  What 
safety  was  possible  for  those  poor  folk?  And 
yet,  what  were  we  able  to  do? 


XIX 
''PREACH  The  WORD— HEAL  The  SICK" 


r » 


[  '■ 


' 


THE  summer  of  1892  was  a  hard  one  on 
the  fishermen.  Scarcely  had  we  reached 
Labrador  and  begun  fishing,  when  we 
learnt  that  a  terrible  fire  had  occurred  in  St. 
Johns,  destroying  virtually  the  whole  city.  We 
all  suffered  directly  or  indirectly,  and  my  own 
prospects  were  rendered  still  more  gloomy  by  the 
fact  that  we  had  done  very  badly  with  the  fish 
during  June  and  July.  We  had  now  sailed  down 
as  far  north  as  we  usually  go,  when  the  girl  that 
I  had  shipped  for  the  summer  took  ill.  She  was 
very  bad  indeed  with  inflammation  of  the  lungs. 
I  was  terribly  put  to  it,  to  know  what  to  do.  If 
I  wanted  fish,  we  must  go  on  further  from  home ; 
yet  if  I  did  not  get  help  somewhere,  the  girl 
might  die  in  the  dark  uncomfortable  bunk  in  our 
schooner's  little  cabin.  It  almost  meant  ruin  to 
go  back  without  enough  fish  to  pay  for  the  sup- 
plies we  had  had  this  summer;  for  I  could 
scarcely  expect    the    merchant    to    give    us  a 

138 


I 


''PREACH  The  IVORD"  139 

winter's  diet,  after  he  had  just  had  all  his  sup- 
plies burnt  up.  Between  anxiety  for  the  future 
and  anxiety  for  the  girl,  I  was  almost  driven  out 
of  my  mind,  for  we  had  no  comforts  for  the  sick 
on  board,  or  medicines  either,  nor  should  we  have 
known  how  to  use  them  if  we  had  had  them. 
Any  chance  of  forgetting  one's  troubles  even  in 
sleep  were  denied  me,  for  who  could  sleep  in 
hearing  of  the  constant  moaning  of  a  person 
whose  life  he  was  responsible  for,  in  the  same 
little  cabin  where  his  own  bunk  was  ? 

It  was  the  i8th  of  August,  and  the  wind  was 
in  the  nor'west,  blowing  strong  out  of  the  bay. 
Our  boys  had  just  come  in  from  the  trap—un- 
successful again,  and  I  was  walking  up  and  down 
on  deck,  ready  to  throw  myself  over  the  side,  as 
a  skipper  did  last  summer,  in  Makkovik  harbour, 
after  tying  the  kedge  anchor  round  his  neck, 
when  I  noticed  a  very  large  and  smart  ketch- 
rigged  vessel  come  round  the  souther  head,  and 
stand  into  the  bay.     She  sailed  like  a  witch,  and 
was  no  vessel  I  had  ever  seen  on  the  Labrador 
coast  before      Every  line  of  her  was  English  from 
her  truck  to  her  cut-water,  though  she  was  smart 
enough  to  be  an  American  pleasure  yacht. 
As  I  watched  her  she  tacked  and  bore  up  for 


j--5bi(E:^ 


I 

I 


rfi 


n 


140  Tht  HARVEST  of  Tht  SEA 

our  harbour.  I  saw  then  she  carried  too  much 
beam  for  the  extra  "  half  knot  per  hour  "  that  all 
pleasure-seekers  sacrifice  so  much  for.  No,  she 
was  built  for  keeping  the  sea,  that  was  evident ; 
and  what  was  more,  she  had  recently  been 
sheathed  to  stand  ice.  What  could  she  be  ?  I 
had  never  seen  the  like  of  her.  A  few  minutes 
later  she  hove  up  in  the  wind  and  let  go  her  two 
anchors.  »  Never  been  here  before,"  I  thought, 
as  I  heard  the  skipper  shout  out  to «'  let  go  a' 
port."  He  evidently  had  been  afraid  of  our 
coast. 

"  Come,  boys,  out  boat !  Let's  go  aboard,  and 
see  what  she  is,  anyhow." 

You  may  be  sure  we  took  notice  of  all  her 
points  as  we  rowed  towards  her.  Just  as  we 
crossed  her  bow  to  get  at  the  ladder  on  the  far 
side,'Lije  (that's  my  trap-master)  sang  out, 

"  She's  got  a  good  name,  anyhow — hasn't  she, 
skipper  ?  " 

It  seemed  an  odd  name  to  me.  There,  carved 
in  letters  of  gold  on  her  starboard  rail,  were  the 
words.  Pleach  the  Word.  But,  odder  still,  on  her 
port  rail,  in  the  same  place,  were  the  words.  Heal 
the  Sick. 

As  we  made  fast  to  the  side,  the  skipper  came 


^'f50»?iS:M 


''PREACH  Th*  IVORD" 


HI 

to  the  rail  and  gave  us  a  fisherman's  welcome 

"  What  cheer,  friend  ?    Glad  to  see  you.    Come 
aboard ! " 

As  I  think  of  it  now,  he  must  have  thought 
me  an  odd  fish.     For  once  on  board,  I  stood  hke 
a  stuck  pig,  with  my  mout  i  open,  tryin^  to  take 
her  in.    Teak  deck,  and  hntclK-,  ,ron  skylights 
pitch-pine  spars  throughout.  bra.,s  pumps  as  clean' 
as   new  pins,_surely,  she   mu,t   be  a  pleasure 
yacht,  after  all.    I  began  to  be  sorry  I  had  tres- 
passed in  coming  aboard.     Yet  there  was  en- 
graved on  her  great  oak  wheel  words   I  had 
never  seen  on  a  ship's  wheel  before :  "  Jesus 
saith,  foUow  Me,  and  I  will  make  you  fishers  of 
men." 

"  Can't  make  us  out,  eh  ?  "  said  the  skipper  at 
last,  who  had  been  watching  me  all  the  time  with 
an  amused  smile. 

"  No,  sir,"  I  answered ;  "  she  is  the  firet  of  her 
kmd  I  ever  set  eyes  on." 

"  Come  below  and  have  a  look  at  her.  and  see 
If  you  can  make  her  out  then." 

She  was  as  trim  below  as  on  deck.  Her  large 
hold  was  grained  and  varnished.  The  ballast- 
deck  was  covered  with  oilcloth,  and  there  was 
an  harmonium  there.    A  large  cabin,  right  across 


ill 


t;} 


'.  ti 


I 


I    11 


li 


I 


1!        ■  *    '■ 


f     * 


142  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

the  ship  amidships,  was  brightly  done  up  with 
panels  of  pitch-pine  and  walnut.  Eight  beds  in 
it  were  covered  with  bright-coloured  quilts.  Two 
of  these  were  on  pivots  and  swung  to  and  fro 
with  the  rolling  of  the  ship — or,  rather,  stood 
still  while  the  deck  swayed  beneath  th  .n. 

"  That's  our  hospital,"  said  the  skipper. 

"  Hospital !  You  haven't  got  a  doctor  aboard, 
have  you  ?  " 

"  Why  of  course  we  have,"  he  replied ;  "  do  you 
want  to  see  him  ?  " 

"  Well,  we  have  a  girl  ab'^^rd  our  schooner,  who 
is  dying.  Do  you  think  :vc  would  come  aboard 
and  see  her  ?  " 

"  You  had  better  ask  him  yourself,"  said  the 
skipper;  and  without  wasting  a  moment,  he 
knocked  at  a  door  in  the  after  end  of  the  hos- 
pital, and  said, 

"Doctor,  there's  a  man  here  wants  to  see 
you." 

In  half  a  minute  a  young  doctor  was  shaking 
me  by  the  hand,  saying, 

"  Well,  skipper,  glad  to  see  you.  What  can  I 
do  for  you  ?  " 

"We've  only  got  very  poor  accommodation, 
doctor,"  I  replied,  "  but  our  girl  is  very  sick,  and 


''PREACH  The  WORD''  143 

I  thought  you  might  be  kind  enough  to  come 
and  tell  us  what  to  do  for  her." 

"  Of  course  I  will,  skipper.  Why,  that's  what 
we  are  sent  here  for.  To  show  how  grateful  we 
are  for  what  the  Master  did  for  us,  by  trying 
to  do  the  same  for  others.  Come  along.  No 
time  like  the  present." 

So  this  was  the  mission-ship!  We  had  heard 
some  talk  of  one  coming,  but  had  thought  it  only 
one  of  the  idle  rumours  of  the  coast. 


'"a-,  j&jsa&wsw^: 


'  i. 


■III 

il 


I 


ii- 


i     i 


/. 


^tl" 


XX 

Jf^///^T  TA«  HOSPITAL  SHIP  MEANT  to 
LABRADOR 

SOME  people  say  "  missions ? — missions 
are  all  cant."  In  half  an  hour  our  girl  was 
in  that  beautiful  little  hospital.  She  didn't 
find  much  cant  about  this  mission,  anyhow ! 
For  if  there  is  no  heaven  hereafter,  that  hospital 
was  very  like  heaven  to  her  here,  after  what  she 
had  gone  through  in  our  poor  cabin.  Moreover, 
when  the  mission-ship  went  on  her  way,  the  girl 
went  with  her,  and  stayed  aboard  till  she  got  well 
in  that  little  hospital,  though  the  doctor  said  she 
had  "  New  Moanier."  Then  they  gave  her  a 
passage  home  in  the  mail  steamer.  And  I  know 
her  old  father  and  mother  didn't  find  any  cant 
about  it,  when  Mary  told  them  how  it  all  hap- 
pened. And  what's  more,  I  know  I  didn't,  either. 
For  from  that  day  things  took  a  turn  with  us. 
We  fell  in  with  the  fish,  and  made  a  saving  voy- 
age of  it  after  all.  "  May  He  who  gives  all  good 
gifts  reward  those  who  helped  to  send  her  out," 

144 


;!ii 


The  HOSPITAL  SHIP  ,45 

say  I.    And  many  a  hundred  fishermen  have  said 
the  same  since  that  day. 

For  the  mission-ship  did  not  come  only  to 
doctor  up  sick  people.     While  she  lay  in  the  har- 
bours, any  one  was  welcome  aboard.     You  could 
play  a  game  there,  when  times  were  slack ;  and 
not  a  few  took  advantage  of  the  chance.  I'm'  glad 
to  say.     For  idle  hands  are  as  dangerous  here  as 
anywhere.     Then  the  reading  she  gave  out  <     It 
wasn't  just  all  one  kind :  you  could  get  what 
people  call  -  light  reading  "-though  I  know  it 
must  have  weighed  a  good  many  tons !     Then 
she  had  a  pile  of  sermons  m  what  they  called 
their  .'  woollen  lockers."     Our  work  is  often  bit- 
terly cold;  for  if  the  water  isn't  cold  enough  in 
•tself.  there  are  always  the  icebergs  to  prevent  its 
gettmg  over  hot.     Moreover,  Labrador  isn't  a 
great  country  for  grazing  sheep,  and  though  we 
have  one  or  two  head  when  we  can.  and  card 
and  spm  and  knit  our  own  mits  and  helmets  and 
underwear.-when  a  woman  has  a  lot  of  children 
some  one  has  to  go  short,  and  mits  and  mufflers' 
are  never  over  plentiful,  while  I  have  seen  many 
a  poor  fellow  without  any  at  all.     Yes.  and  I 
have  also  seen  them  without  stockings  under  their 
t>oots.    The  mission-ship  found  many  in   that 


146 


The  HARDEST  of  The  SEJ 


f  . 


ri 


U\ 


Ms   ■  r  y 


plight,  the  road  to  whose  hearts  could  be  reached 
with  a  quiet  little  gift  of  some  much  needed 
woollens ;  while  the  great  sea-boot  stockings, 
such  as  they  use  in  the  North  Sea,  were  a  revela- 
tion to  all  of  us. 

Every  evening  prayers  were  held  aboard,  and 
of  course  you  could  stay  or  go  just  as  you  liked. 
They  were  just  simple  "  fishermen's  meetings." 
The  doctor  or  the  skipper  led  the  service,  or  per- 
haps one  of  the  crew,  if  the  others  were  busy. 
Some  of  us  found  this  the  best  part  of  all  the 
work  she  tried  to  do.  The  meetings  were  the 
means  of  opening  up  a  new  life  to  many  a  man 
who  before  had  only  thought  of  himself  and 
pleasing  his  own  desires.  More  than  one  of  my 
friends  started  there  to  try  and  "  do  the  thing 
that  pleaseth  Thee,"  as  the  Psalm  says.  Some 
five  years  after,  the  doctor  was  aboard  me  again 
to  see  one  of  my  men,  who  was  laid  up.  As  he 
was  going,  the  man  said  : 

"  You  evidently  don't  remember  me,  Doc- 
tor." 

"  No,  I  can't  say  I  do.  Did  I  ever  see  you 
before  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir  ;  you  did.  Don't  you  mind  two  men, 
who  decided  to  serve  the  Lord  one  night,  after 


./-•fA-^- 


The  HOSPITAL  SHIP  147 

service  on  the  rocks  at  Pauls  Island  ?    I  was  one 
of  those  men,  sir." 
"  Well,  what  difference  has  it  made  to  you  ?  " 
The  man  was  silent  for  a  bit,  and  then  said, 
"  Perhaps  you  had  better  ask  my  wife.  sir.     The 
skipper  here  ought  to  know,  too.     He  lives  near 
me  at  home.    Anyhow,  if  I  have  to  die  down 
here  this  time,  Pm  not  afraid." 

As  the  doctor  came  on  deck  he  took  me  aside, 
and  asked  me, 

"  How  about  the  man's  life  at  home  ?  " 
"  He  has  been  a  different  man.  these  last  five 
years.  I  wish  you  could  see  the  difference  it  has 
made  in  his  home,"  I  answered  quite  truly. 
"  You  did  more  for  him  and  his  then,  than  you'll 
ever  do  again,  even  if  you  do  pull  him  through 
this  sickness." 

I  didn't  see  any  more  of  the  mission-ship  that 
summer,  after  she  left  where  I  was  fishing,  but  1 
heard  she  did  just  the  same  all  along  the  coast. 
The  only  pity  of  it  was  (so  it  seemed  to  me)  that 
like  angel's  visits,  hers  were  so  few  and  far  be- 
tween. In  the  fall,  however,  when  the  winter 
weather  drove  us  all  south  again,  as  our  schooner 
lay  in  St.  Johns  discharging  her  fish  and  getting 
supplies  to  take  home  for  the  winter,-thcre,  sure 


I  ! 


W 


f 


\i  ! 


^  :f 


ii)ih 


148  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

enoug.:,  close  alongside  us  lay  the  mission-ship. 
She  was  getting  stowed  away  for  the  long  voy- 
age home  across  the  Atlantic,  and  every  night  a 
lot  of  her  newly  found  friends  were  aboard  her,  I 
among  them,  you  may  be  sure.  Would  she 
come  back  ?    That  was  what  we  all  wanted  to 

know. 

A  great  number  of  the  fishermen  got  talking  to 
their  merchants  about  her,  so  quite  an  interest 
was  created  in  her  in  St.  Johns,  and  at  last  the 
Governor  himself  called  a  big  meeting  to  see 
what  could  be  done.    All  the  chief  merchants 
and  planters  were  there,  and  passed  a  resolution 
to  be  sent  home  to  those  who  sent  the  ship  out, 
saying  that  they  would  gladly  subscribe  towards 
the  expense,  if  only  she  were  sent  again.    The 
doctor  told  them  at  the  meeting  thathehad  treated 
nine  hundred  sick   and  injured  fishermen,  and 
showed  the  books  that  every  one  might  see  the 
kind  of  cases  he  was  called  on  to  help,  with  the 
name  and  address  of  every  fisherman  he  had 
treated.     But  there  were  some  things  he  said 
would  have  to  be  done,  if  the  ship  ever  came 
again,  and  the  best  was  to  be  expected  of  her. 
The  cliffs  in  Labrador  are  very  high,  and  there 
are  no  tugboats  to  help  a  sailing  vessel  in  or  out 


il 


i 


\i> 


)      I 


M 


If 


!■ ;  ■  It  I 


lid 


m-'-^^KIe^i 


The  HOSPITAL  SHIP 


149 


C 
H 


•f. 


of  the  long  and  often  very  narrow  fjords.  A 
steamer  or  a  steam  launch  attached  to  the  ship 
would  enable  her  to  do  ten  times  the  work  in  the 
same  time.  Then  again,  many  of  the  patients 
were  not  fit  to  be  left,  and  could  not  be  sent 
home,  and  yet  there  were  too  many  for  the  little 
hospital  on  the  ship.  Many  besides,  who  were 
badly  in  need  of  help,  didn't  know  where  to  go 
to  find  the  mission-ship.  So  a  shore  hospital 
was  sorely  needed  to  assist  the  work.  Then 
again,  there  was  no  possible  way  of  nursing  the 
cases  properly  on  board,  especially  if  they  were 
infectious,  or  if  some  severe  operation  had  to 
be  performed ;  so  a  trained  nurse  was  needed, 
if  we  fishermen  were  to  hope  to  get  such  treat- 
ment as  those  who  stayed  at  home  and  never 
went  out  to  enrich  the  colony,  should  get  in  the 
hospital  at  St.  Johns.  It  was  plain,  also,  that  a 
great  source  of  immediate  loss  in  money  might 
be  stayed,  if  some  of  the  sick  were  able  to  go  and 
get  cured  in  a  week  or  two,  and  then  go  back  to 
the  fishing,  instead  of  being  sent  far  south  to  their 
homes,  losing  the  whole  season. 

Some  meetings  end  in  talk,  but  this  one  didn't. 
The  merchants  at  once  promised  to  pay  for  the 
erection  of  two  such  little  hospitals,  if  the  mis- 


^  I. 


150  Tie  HARFEST  of  The  SEA 

sion  would  take  over  the  management  and  keep 
them  working.    One  merchant,  indeed,  said  that 
he  was  prepared  to  give  a  new  house  at  a  place 
called    Battle    Harbour    for    the  f5«t  hospital. 
When  the   mission-ship  at  length  got  up  her 
anchors  and  spread  her  sails  for  the  homeward 
voyage,  she  carried  with  her  the  letters  from  that 
meetmg,  signed   by  the   Governor  and   all  the 
leading  men.    Would  she  come  back  or  not? 
That  was  the  question  I  and  many  others  asked 
ourselves,  more  than  once  that  winter. 


I.!    I 


i  i  ^ 


keep 
ithat 
place 
pital. 
>  her 
ward 

that 
:  the 
not? 
sked 


H 


Si  — 

Wi 


XXI 
U^MERE  POl^ERTY  MEANS  STARf^AT/ON 

THE  long  winter  went  at  last,  and  once 
again  we    ran    our   schooner  into  St. 
Johns    to    fit  out  for  Labrador.    You 
can  judge  how  glad  I  was  when,  as  we  bore  up 
to  anchor,  we  saw  right  ahead  of  us  floating  in 
the  stream,  the  mission  hospital  ship.     There  she 
was.  with  all  her  bunting  flying,  and  above  all 
the  rest  the  broad  blue  burgee,  with  "  Mission  to 
Deep  Sea  Fishermen  "  in  white  letters  on  it;  and 
lying  alongside  was  a  smart  little  steam  launch, 
the  PrtHcess  May,  flying  the  same  token.     When 
I  went  aboard  I  found  that  she  was  just  out, 
and  that  two  more  doctors  had  come  to  us.  and 
two  nurses  also,  for  the  two  little  mission  hos- 
pitals, which  those  in  the  old  countiy  had  de- 
cided to  accept  and  work.     They  were  to  be  two 
hundred  miles  apart  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  one 
just  on  the  north  side  of  the  Straits  of  Belle  Isle 
and  the  other  at  the  entrance  to  Hamilton  Inlet.' 
The  news  soon  flashed  along  the  coast,  perhaps 

151 


MICROCOPY   RESOLUTION   TEST  CHART 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


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B"^  Rochester,    New   York         14609       USA 

•■^=  (716)   482  -  0300  -  Phone 

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152  The  HARFEST  of  The  SEA 

none  the  slower  for  there  being  no  regular  tele- 
graph or  other  means  of  communication.  More 
than  one  poor  fisherman  who  feared  to  start  for  so 
long  a  cruise,  if  he  could  not  be  near  any  help  till 
he  returned,  put  out  for  Labrador  with  an  easy 
mind,  while  many  a  mother  going  down  to  the 
far-off  fishing  station,  did  so  with  a  confidence 
she  had  never  enjoyed  before. 

But  now  that  the  people  began  to  know  what 
it  meant  to  be  able  to  get  to  a  doctor  in  the 
summer  when  they  were  in  pain  or  sickness,  those 
who  stay  in  Labrador  were  anxious  to  get  a  place 
kept  open  in  the  winter,  that  they  could  go  to  for 
help.  There  were  often  cases  where  poor  men 
died  for  want  of  knowledge  what  to  do.  Thus 
at  one  place  on  the  coast,  a  man  was  hunting 
when  his  gun  went  off  and  shot  him  in  the  shoul- 
der. A  good  friend  stopped  the  bleeding  by 
packing  up  the  hole  with  a  stocking ;  but  a  week 
later  it  began  again,  and  the  man  lost  his  life,  and 
left  six  children  behind  him.  Then  again,  when 
another  man  shot  himself  in  the  elbow,  all  they 
could  do  was  to  tie  it  up  with  cold  water.  As  a 
result  he  lost  his  right  arm,— and  what  is  a  fisher- 
man able  to  do  without  a  right  arm?  Ever 
since,  his  family  has  lived  from  hand  to  mouth 


POVERTT  MEANS  STARVATION  153 

on  the  charity  of  neighbours.  Of  course,  seme 
said  that  people  couldn't  get  to  a  hospital  in 
winter,  as  the  sea  is  frozen  then.  But  the  doctor 
said  he  was  willing  to  stay  and  see  what  could 
be  done.  So  when  every  one  else  started  for 
home,  the  doctor  was  left  on  Caribou  Island,  and 
half  the  mission  crew  said  that  was  the  last  they 
expected  to  see  of  him.  He  set  to  work  in 
earnest,  however,  and  not  only  was  alive  in  the 
spring,  but  had  travelled  twelve  hundred  miles 
with  his  dogs,  and  visited  far  and  wide  up  and 
down  the  coast. 

The  southern  hospital  has  never  been  closed 
since  that  day.  Indeed,  it  has  been  doubled  in 
size,  and  is  now  full  to  overflowing  all  the  summer 
long,  while  once  in  winter  seven  komatiks,  drawn 
by  over  sixty  dogs,  accompanied  the  doctor  back 
to  hospital  one  day,  each  carrying  a  patient. 

The  hardest  thing  the  doctor  found  to  contend 
with,  was  the  great  poverty  of  the  settlers  in  the 
winter,  and  the  diseases  that  arose  from  lack  of 
proper  food.  Every  spring  he  met  with  cases  of 
true  scurvy,  the  disease  that  once  carried  off  so 
many  of  the  sailors  on  their  long  voyages  to  the 
Spanish  main,  but  is  seldom  or  never  seen  in 
civilized  countries  nowadays.    More  than  once 


u 


* 


If. I 


I 


iff 


154  The  HJRVEST  of  The  SEJ 

the  food  he  was  carrying  along  for  his  dogs,  had 
to  be  shared  with  the  children  of  the  house  he 
was  visiting.     The  reason  was  not  far  to  seek. 
The  settlers  when  they  made  a  good  voyage  were 
unable  to  save,  for  never  being  paid  in  cash  they 
were  tempted  10  take  up  a  lot  of  unnecessary 
articles,  rather  than  "  leave  on  the  books  "  with 
their  trader  that  rather  visionary  possession  known 
as  <•  a  balance  coming  to  you."     Thus  in  bad  sea- 
sons there  was  nothing  to  fall  back  on,  while  at 
the  same  time  what  is  known  as  "  credit  prices  " 
were  always  booked  against  them.     Moreover, 
after  a  bad  season,  unless  they  were  good  furri- 
ers, they  could  earn  nothing  in  winter.     It  was 
unavoidable,  therefore,  that  the  men  with  large 
families  were  either  hungry  or  overwhelmed  with 
debt. 

I  was  sitting,  one  autumn  day,  on  the  end  of  a 
long,  rocky  promontory  over  which  the  southern- 
flying  ducks  are  always  waylaid,  when  a  nor'easter 
blows  the  fog  in,  and  makes  the  birds  fly  close  to 
the  land.  There  is  no  more  exciting  time,  per- 
haps, for  about  twenty  men,  all  with  long,  large- 
bore  guns,  await  the  immense  flocks  that  sud- 
denly emerge  from  the  fog,  whirl  like  lightning 
over  the  cape,  and  disappear  again.     On  this  day 


POVERTY  MEANS  STARVATION  155 

there  sat  behind  me  one  of  the  men  I  had  always 
known  as  the  keenest  lover  of  his  gun ;  yet  with 
his  head  resting  on  his  bent-up  knees,  he  was 
looking  vacantly  into  space.  His  gun,  which  he 
had  brought  along  from  habit,  was  lying  unloaded 
on  the  rocks  beside  him.  It  was  "  settling-day  " 
with  his  merchant,  and  he  had  done  badly  that 
summer. 

"  What,  not  shooting,  Jim  ?  "  I  asked.   "  Surely, 
you  aren't  going  to  let  them  all  off,  are  you ' " 

"What's  the  good?"  he  replied.  "  I'v  got 
to  starve  anyhow." 

"  What's  the  matter  now?"  I  said. 

"  The  matter  is,  I've  got  nothing  for  the  winter, 
and  what  few  duel  s  I  can  kill  won't  keep  my 
kids  alive." 

"  What's  the  balance  against  you  ?  "  I  asked. 
"Something  over  three  thousand  dollars,"  he 
answered. 

"Three  thous?-^  what!"  I  exclaimed. 

"  Dollars,"  he  j_.Ked  out,  mechanically. 

I  thought  to  myself  there  must  be  some  mis- 
take; but  I  found  out  afterwards  that  there  was 
no  mistake  at  all,  for  when  the  great  crash  took 
place,  and  so  many  merchant  firms  went  bank- 
rupt, the  debts  to  the  firm  at  this  one  place  were 


I 


■m-^r* 


i  1 


'  \  > 


156  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

stated  in  the  assets  as  "  Outstanding  debts  at 
this  Harbour,  1^64,000.  Value,  nil."  The  credit 
system,  though  impossible  to  get  rid  of  at  a 
moment's  notice,  was  injurious  to  all  who  prac- 
ticed it.  The  doctor  got  hopeless  of  curing  folk 
whom  he  had  to  send  back  to  chronic  starvation, 
and  of  cruel  cases  of  tubercular  diseases  in  so 
many  young  children,  in  a  climate  where  there 
is  no  excuse  for  the  tubercle  bacillus,  except  the 
miserable  poverty  of  the  people. 

Could  anything  be  done  to  preach  the  gospel, 
on  economic  lines  ?  Or  should  he  be  satisfied  to 
work  away  with  his  eyes  tightly  closed,  trying  to 
undo  what  he  saw  would  all  be  done  over  again 
directly  he  had  reached  the  end  of  his  tether  ? 
At  least  no  one  could  blame  him  for  trying. 
Should  he  go  on  preaching  the  salvation  of  the 
soul  in  the  next  world,  while  he  witnessed  the 
damnation  of  the  body  in  this,  without  making 
an  effort  to  mitigate  the  situation,  however  feeble 
it  might  prove  ? 


i 


11: 


XXII 
HELPING  OTHERS  to  HELP  THEMSELVES 

WITH  this  object  in  view  a  small  co- 
operative store  was  started  at  a  place 
in  Labrador  called  Red  Bay,  the  fish- 
ermen themselves  putting  in  what  cash  they 
could  scrape  together  in  five-dollar  shares.  This 
store  has  been  in  operation  now  for  nearly  ten 
years.  It  has  done  a  great  deal  to  render  the 
neighbouring  fishermen  independent.  It  has 
cheapened  very  materially  the  prices  of  goods, 
especially  the  main  articles  of  consumption,  such 
as  salt,  flour,  butter,  tea,  and  pork.  It  has  not 
accomplished  all  it  might  have  done,  if  a  busi- 
ness man  had  been  there  to  manage  it ;  but  it  is 
still  a  decided  success,  and  the  managers,  almost 
illiterate  fishermen,  have  learnt  a  great  deal  from 
it.  The  opinion  of  the  people  there  is,  that  were 
it  not  for  the  little  cooperative  store,  they  would 
have  had  to  leave  the  place  before  this.  During 
these  years  four  other  stores  of  the  same  kind 
have  been  established  along  the  coast.    These 

IS7 


l1 


lli)-. 


'i'l  'I 


158  The  HARFEST  of  The  SEA 

are  all  in  a  sense  affiliated,  the  same  agent  buy- 
ing for  all  of  them  in  St.  Johns,  and  the  same 
schooner,  the  Cooperator,  which  belongs  to  them, 
bringing  them  their  supplies  and  carrying  away 
their  fish. 

To  keep  the  people  going,  however,  without 
occasional  dependence  on  credit,  which  is  the 
same  thing  as  charity  here,  it  was  evident  that 
an  increased  capacity  for  earning  was  necessary, 
and  that  could  only  be  acquired  by  getting  work 
in  the  winter.  The  doctor  therefore  obtained 
from  the  Newfoundland  government  a  timber 
area  on  special  terms,  to  enable  any  one  in  need 
to  get  at  least  enough  food  for  the  time  by  haul- 
ing out  logs  for  the  mill,  while  it  would  afford 
labour  as  well  to  many  who  thus  would  be  en- 
abled to  save  against  bad  times. 

At  first,  the  mill  did  not  prosper,  as  lumbering 
was  entirely  new  to  the  doctor,  who  knew  more 
of  pills  than  mills,  and  yet  was  unable  to  import 
a  manager,  owing  to  the  smallness  of  his  capital. 
This  however  has  been  remedied  now,  and  a 
flourishing  little  industry  has  sprung  up  relieving 
all  the  poverty  in  the  district  round.  Over  sixty 
families  now  live  all  winter  where  none  lived 
before.    Their  children  can  go  to  the  school 


HELPING   OTHERS  159 

they  have  built  there,  and  the  people  gather 
with  ease  for  prayers  on  Sunday,  Some  have 
also  developed  a  talent  for  schooner  building, 
and  they  have  already  turned  out  two  smart 
schooners. 

Among  those  who  have  known  most  of  Lab- 
rador, none  is  better  known  to  the  world  than 
Lord  Strathcona,  the  famous  pioneer  of  the 
Canadian  Pacific  Railway,  the  High  Commis- 
sioner for  Canada,  and  the  giver  to  the  nation 
of  the  services  of  the  Strathcona  Horse.  His 
knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  life  in  Labrador 
led  him  to  give  the  mission  a  smart  little  steamer, 
which  was  used  to  replace  the  sailing  hospital- 
ship,  while  the  launch  was  used  to  bring  sick  to 
and  from  the  southern  hospital. 

This  steamer  was  harboured  in  Labrador  her 

third  winter,  and  when  the  doctor,  under  whose 

care  she  was,  went  to  look  for  her  in  the  spring, 

she  was  nowhere  to  be  found.     He  had  grapples 

made,  and  dragged  the  hcrbour  to  see  if  she 

were  sunk  in  the  ice.     Meanwhile  she  had  gone 

on  a  long  voyage  by  herself.     While  the  great 

sealing  steamers  were  at  work  in  the  heavy  ice 

in  the  month  of  March,  some  of  the  men  descried 

a  spar  sticking  up  out  of  one  of  the  immense 


S       ! 
I       ' 

i 
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f 


'h 


1 60  r*^  HARFEST  of  The  SEJ 

p?       of  ice.     On  closer  inspection  they  found 
that  it  was  an  imbedded  steamer,  and  on  care- 
ful examination  they  found  it  was  the  mission- 
steamer.     She  had  gone  to  sea  in  the  ice  of  her 
own  accord,  taking  her  anchrs  and  chains  with 
her.     Oddly  enough,  too,  the  seals  that  the  men 
were  in  search  of  were  all  ^round  her,  so  much 
so,  that  a  rumour  gci  about  that  they  were  ac- 
tually taking  tea  in  her  cabin.     The  steamer  was 
cut  out  and  towed  to  St.  Johns,  where  she  had 
to  be  condemned  and  sold  for  what  she  would 
fetch.    Many  good  friends,  howevrer,  rallied  round 
the  work,  the  value  of  which  had  made  itself  so 
plainly  felt.     Money  was  freely  subscribed,  the 
list  being  headed  ag?in  by  Lord  Strathcona,  after 
whom  the  new  steamer  is  named.    She  is  a  smart 
steel  ten-knot  boat,  with  auxiliary  sail  power,  that 
crossed  the  Atlantic  in  ter  days.    She  has  a 
splendid  little  hospital  amidships,  and  is  com- 
manded by  the  doctor,  who  happens  to  be  a 
master  mariner. 

A  third  hospital  was  added  last  year.  It  is  on 
the  south  side  of  the  straits  of  Belle  Isle,  and 
among  a  people  who  have  no  other  possible 
means  of  getting  skilled  help.     It  is  in  a  beau- 


I 

i 

j 


\  ri 


,11 


HELPING   OTHERS  ,6i 

tiful  harbour  called  St.  Anthony.  A  second 
steam-launch  has  also  been  given,  which  runs 
all  summer  to  and  from  the  most  northern  hos- 
pital. 

Many  other  methods  of  preaching  the  gospel 
of  love  have  also  been  adopted.     . .  number  of 
orphaned  and  crippled  children  have  been  taken 
and  sent  to  new  homes  in  Canada  or  the  States. 
Many  have  been  trained  and  sent  out  to  earn  a 
living  as  servants.    Then  again,  small  lib/aries 
have  been  started  all  along  the  coast.    These  are 
in  shelved  cases,  and  are  moved  on  from  place 
to  place  as  they  are  read.    A  regular  carpenter 
teaching-shop,  with    sloyd    benches,  has    been 
started  at  St.  Anthony  Hospital,  and  a  number 
of  young  lads  have  received  regular  teaching 
from  a  skilled  carpenter.    Ambulance  lectures 
have  been  given,  and  a  number  have  taken  the 
certificate  of  capacity  to  render  first  aid  to  the 
wounded.    Night  schools,  working  classes,  etc., 
are  carried  on  by  the  sisters  at  the  various  hos- 
pitals in  the  long  winter  evenings ;  so  that  I  have 
never  visited  them  without  finding  them  busy 
and  cheerful.    The  gospel  of  cheerfulness  and 
cleanliness  and  hope  seemed  to  exhale  from  these 


II-     ;  A 


162  The  HARVEST  of  The  SEA 

centres  of  work  for  our  great  Master,  while 
reason  of  it  all  is  to  be  read  as  one  enters  B; 
Harbour.  For  there,  in  letters  a  foot  long,  cai 
all  across  the  face  of  the  hospital  so  that  he  1 
runs  may  read,  are  these  words : 

"  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of  the  1 
of  these,  My  brethren,  ye  did  it  unto  Me." 


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Me." 


